


The Queen Who Was

by Ramzes



Series: Days That Never Were [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, kind of gross details in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-05 07:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11008860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramzes/pseuds/Ramzes
Summary: The future of Westeros seemed firmly designed and it lies in Viserys I's future line. And then, a sudden death changes everything for everyone, and Rhaenys Targaryen is pushed in a position she had never considered she might find herself in.





	1. Chapter 1

The people of Driftmark had not seen the sky in weeks – it was always blocked out by the wings of one dragon or another. Even in the days preceding Lord Corlys' wedding to the heiress of King Jaehaerys' heir, they had never seen this many dragons. Green, red like fire, black like a starless night and all between, from huge Vhagar to the tiny hatchlings, they commanded horror and awe, as well as joy, except for the moments they rose and landed, and their mass, hear, and teeth were so very close.

Rhaenys Targaryen, the Lady of Driftmark, had not taken Meleys out for a flight in many weeks, a month perhaps, and when she left the central building of the castle, holding her children's hands, the dragon gave a mournful roar, as if feeling her closeness – and her neglect.

"Are you going to take her out for a ride?" the King asked that night, after Lord Corlys had been laid to rest.

"Yes," Rhaenys said without looking at him. "Perhaps tomorrow."

"That's what you said yesterday," Viserys reminded her but she merely shrugged. She was too heartbroken to care for her dragon. Right now, she couldn't even summon much interest in her _children's_ wellbeing. Fortunately, they had other people to take care of them. Meleys, though…

"You should think of another husband," the Queen told her the next day as the two of them sat together sewing – well, Rhaenys was sewing and Aemma was going the more elevated task of embroidering. Rhaenys had always been more fond of seeing the actual use of her work and there wasn't much of that in an additional flower gracing the edge of the cloak meant for the statue of the Mother. "Not now, of course," she added quickly, feeling a little guilty because Rhaenys had just – just – been released from the torture called marital bed. She certainly did not need any reminder that she's have to lie in one again soon enougn. "But over time. You can't rule Driftmark on your own."

It was a mark of Rhaenys' exhaustion that she didn't snap that she had once been deemed suitable to rule the Seven Kingdoms on her own. Only her lord father's death had changed this, as if it had suddenly turned her – well, and Corlys also – into an incompetent _. Did it really, in Grandfather's eyes,_ she wondered and felt anger at herself for still caring.

"Never," she said because this was the truth. "When Corlys died, all men died for me."

"Do not talk about death," Aemma said softly, pressing her hand to her belly just for a moment. But Rhaenys noticed the gesture and sympathy and concern filled her, pushing a little of her grief away. Was Aemma with child again? Was this the reason she didn't want to hear about death? Rhaenys thought about Viserys' whore, the supposedly saintly daughter of his Hand, and wondered if this had been Ser Otto's end game at the Great Council a few years ago. Had he been influencing her grandfather against her and in Viserys' favour because he had been waiting for Aemma to die in childbirth? Would she?

"I won't," Rhaenys said softly, looking away, and Aemma smiled gratefully, thankful for the small gesture that let her have the moment she needed to collect herself and present a brave face to the world once again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to everyone who commented!

Aemma had never been a very tall woman; the meats and red wine maesters had had her eat many times a day in the hope that it would make her body stronger and more capable to preserve the lives of the babes in her womb had made her soft and plump and somehow more vulnerable; now, touching the small pale hand, as white and hard as marble, Rhaenys had the feeling that her cousin had suddenly reverted to the small child she remembered from the times they had all found their way to King's Landing at the same time, always looking up to them and never quite measuring up. How could she have? She had been so much younger. A child when Rhaenys had been on her way to womanhood; a girl barely flowered at the time of her wedding. The sound of a goblet hitting the wall suddenly echoed in her mind, reverberating with the power of old times revived, and she almost looked up to see her grandmother ready to throw something again as she yelled at her royal husband in a way Rhaenys had never heard before. Even at the news of Jaehaerys' stance on the inheritance matter, Alysanne had not been so angry, as enraged as she had been at hearing of Aemma's forthcoming wedding.

"Poor lady, she fought so hard," women whispered. "It looked like she would make it."

But she hadn't. And looking at Viserys' ashen face, Rhaenys could not help but wonder if things would have been different if Aemma had first gotten with child at fifteen and not twelve. Seventeen would have been even better. Rhaenys herself had been nineteen at the time of Laena's birth and while the process had been torturous, she had felt well enough to repeat it just a year later with the same ease – if birth could ever be easy!

"When did you last sleep?" Rhaenys asked and Viserys gave the matter some consideration before shrugging. She could say that he really had no idea. She could also say that it had been many days if not weeks since he had last enjoyed an uninterrupted sleep.

A movement at the door made her look up. The Hightower whore was passing through the hall and some were stepping aside to make way for her. Rhaenys could have admitted that there was no arrogance in the girl's bearing or attire but right now, she was in no mood to admit anything good in connection to Alicent Hightower. She had felt Aemma's bitterness, although her cousin had never said a word, for her pride could have rivaled Rhaenys' own. As Aemma had been fighting a battle of life and death that she had lost, Alicent had wormed her way into Viserys' bed – and his affection, perhaps, the more fool he.

She was in no mood to admit anything good in connection to Viserys either. "Grandfather and your father," she spat. "They killed a young woman of twenty three. I just feel you should know it."

The despair in his eyes made her want to slap him. He had never really thought that Aemma would die. He would now have to live with the guilt of knowing that he had made the last year of her life a prolonged torture of resentment and sad reconciliation. He had just never expected that she would die. Had his hand? Had Alicent?

When the notion of getting her daughter wed to him was presented to her, Rhaenys actually snorted in a very unladylike way. After the horror that Aemma's life had turned into, they expected that she would hand her daughter over for more of the same? Laena was twelve. There was no way for Rhaenys to let her lie in a marital bed yet… and the notion of Viserys waiting for her to grow up was unsustainable. Have him wait as Ser Otto and Alicent garnered more influence? When Laena was old enough to be a wife in deed and not just name, Alicent's place in Viserys' life would have been an affirmed one. Laena would not be the one courted for favours and patronage, Alicent would be. Rhaenys had been supposed to be the Queen; Laena would not be even the King's unofficial co-ruler and Rhaenys said so to the Master of Laws, an old man who had served her grandfather ably and loyally and who had come to offer this solution as a bid to unite the two rivaling branches.

"What rivaling branches?" Rhaenys demanded. "The King my grandfather chose and then the Great Council chose as well. I am no rival to anyone."

But he did not look convinced; with acuteness that she had lacked as shortly as five years ago, Rhaenys realized that he was not comfortable with her full exclusion despite advocating for it both times _. Are you trying to procure a better sleep for yourself at night, old ma_ n? she wondered, remembering how shocked her grandmother had been at his stance. The others', not so much.

"Think about it yourself, my lord!" she urged. "Even if there were rivaling branches, how could I give my daughter over to a man who will always place her second, thus extinguishing any chance of reaching true power for us? What do we gain from such a match?"

If only Laena had been a few years older…

"Is this the answer I should carry to His Grace?" the old man asked.

"You can repeat it word by word if you so choose," she replied, knowing that it was not Viserys who had sent him here. To hurt her pride even worse, she would have been expected to make the overtures for the match.

She did not even know who his allies were but the very next day, the King himself appeared at her door and asked to be received. As if she could refuse!

"I don't want your daughter," he said with bluntness that was so unlike him that she gaped. "I need an heir now, not in five years, and I am not taking another child to my bed." He paused and Rhaenys wondered if he had perhaps known of Aemma's aversion to his night visits.

Her heart started pounding and she was astounded. She knew what he would say and she was shocked by her own reaction. She did not even want him. She wanted Corlys to return.

"I think you will make a great Queen," Viserys said simply. "Will you?"

Just like this? Was she supposed to thank him on her knees? He seemed to have guessed what she was thinking about because his face softened. "I know you never wanted me," he said. "Even when the matter of a possible match between us was put forward, it was only Corlys Velaryon you wanted."

She gaped at him. Yes, when the matter of her marriage that was tied so closely to her succession had come up, she had done all she could to dissuade her father without actually admitting that it was the Sea Snake that she wanted to wed. How had Viserys known?

"I know you still feel robbed," he went on. "And I dislike the thought of this still standing between us. We were friends once."

_Yes, before you stood by as your father took what was mine._ She had not meant to say it, did not say it and was shocked to hear her next words. "We were never friends. If we were, you would have at least tried to convince your father to wait a little before having me leave Dragonstone!"

His face grew even paler. For a moment, he looked down before saying in an even voice, "Be that as it may. No one can turn time back. I am thinking of the future. Will you let go of bitterness and take what you can, giving the Seven Kingdoms stability along the way?"

Rhaenys already knew the answer. She could never live with herself if she didn't take this chance, as unsatisfactory as it might look compared to her onetime expectations. She had lived with the thought that she'd be Queen one day for too long. And if she turned Viserys against her, he could support Corlys' cousins against her and make life more difficult for her and her children.

"Very well, I will," she said.

He looked startled. "What?"

"I said, I will. I accept."

She wondered if she should make her conditions clear from the start but then decided against it. She could take care of some things after the wedding. Ser Otto Hightower and his daughter would be the first ones to experience her attention.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented and contributed for the interesting discussions in the threads!

"This wasn't what we used to expect, was it?"

The women fluttering around her, brushing her hair out, adding some colour to her pale face, painting her lips had retreated, joining the happy bustle of the many courtiers and highborn guests who had come to attend her wedding. Rhaenys felt free to talk to her uncle – and a little glad that Laena had been the only one who had not been intimidated by Lord Baratheon's very presence enough to scatter out at soon as Rhaenys nodded. Well, little Rhaenyra had been reluctant to leave but her septa had been uncompromising. While Rhaenys liked the fact that the child was brave enough not to let booming voice and dark face to drive her away, she cherished the fact that she could have a few words with her uncle out of Viserys' daughter's hearing. Her own girl was another matter and besides, Laena was old enough to know what should not leave this room.

But Lord Boremund was not slow to turn Rhaenys' anticipation to ruins, not very different from the way he had fought for her rights both times against so many. "Is this how you're going to start it?" he demanded. "Your married life? The past is in the past, child! Leave it to rest. And if you cannot, you still have the time to change your mind."

The very idea was so preposterous that Rhaenys could only stare at him, clutching the fine piece of fabric she used to smear the paint more uniformly. Red stained her fingers and she didn't even notice it. "Change my mind?"

Her uncle kept watching her with no signs of relenting. "Sure, there will be a scandal and you will lose much – but not as much as if you go over there and say the words, and keep dwelling on the past. Your keeping to hate Viserys, I can accept, although it will make your life a real trial. But what about the children you will give him? Are you going to hate your son for taking what should have been yours? For being Viserys'?"

She gasped. This notion had never occurred to her and she grasped at the most minor point of it. "I don't hate Viserys this much. I don't hate him at all…"

She was dimly aware of Laena's wide eyes moving from her to her uncle but as usual, her daughter kept her composure.

"Then accept it, Rhaenys! What is done is done. And you have to live with it, now even more than before."

Now, Lord Boremund's face softened, he took her hands in her own and once again became the uncle who had fought her battles against the world, long after all had been lost. "I am not saying this to put you to even more desolation, my dear girl. I am saying this because I love you and I care about you, like I loved and cared about your mother. Let it rest. You are now to become Queen and it was your choice to accept what Viserys offered."

Rhaenys looked down, shame blossoming on her cheeks, and Laena gasped, for she, too, was seeing in her mother's face the truth writ plain. All those reasonable explanations, the fear that the Iron Throne would turn against her if she refused, everything she had told her children crumbled in the face of the truth Rhaenys had concealed from herself as much as Laena and Laenor: she wanted power, whatever power she could grab, the position of the King's wife if she could not be Queen in her own right, she wanted power more than she wanted to keep grieving for Corlys.

"I am warning you as a man who has held many grudges in his life!" Lord Baratheon went on. "Keeping them is much easier than living with them every day. And if you have truly made the choice, do not look back at the past. It will poison you." He paused and the concern in his eyes was like a whiplash against her back. "Forgive him, child," he said softly. "He has suffered too."

He had suffered? Viserys? It beggared belief that right now, Lord Boremund would take his side.

Laena's hand flew to her mouth.

Rhaenys mutely shook her head, her mind incapable of processing the desertion of the one who had always stood by her side now, in what should have been her triumph – as much as a triumph as possible under those circumstances! All this because she wanted to mourn a little more for what she had lost?

"I understand," he sighed. "But I think you needed to hear it, and who was better to say it than I?"

Lord Boremund kissed her forehead, kissed Laena's cheek and took his leave. The women came back in and started exclaiming over the tears that had ruined their work on Rhaenys' face.

The wedding was no doubt a splendid affair, as all events hosted by Viserys tended to be, yet years later Rhaenys would remember it only in vivid slices, images cut into her mind: the sudden feeling rising to her throat as she said the words when she had told herself over and over that it would be just a formality, with nothing of her in the old formula, and the way Viserys' face lit up a little when he saw that; the gleaming crown of the High Septon who had come all the way from Oldtown to preside over the wedding; the smooth face of the Hand of the King when he came to offer his congratulations, and the pale white oval of his daughter's chin and cheeks – looking at her, Rhaenys wondered if she had indeed imagined that Viserys would wed her when she, Rhaenys, was free to wed again; the fear in Rhaenyra's eyes that she tried to disguise, for she was old enough to know that with this wedding, no one could say what future would bring her; the way Laena looked at her as if she was seeing a new being poking its head from under her mother's skin; the calm look in her uncle's eyes as if he had not dealt her a blow right before the ceremony; the joy on her onetime supporters as they came forward to congratulate her and the fear of those who had resorted to such sullying of her character that her uncle Baelon had been forced to put them into their place as the fate of the Seven Kingdoms had been discussed; the general relief of the more moderate ones that the silent feud was now over. And always, always, all the time, the roaring of the crowd gathered all the way from the foot of Aegon's Hill, "Give her the crown! Give her the crown!" She was no longer the uncrowned queen, the Queen Who Never Was. She was the Queen. Viserys' Queen.

The memory of how they had carried her upstairs for her first wedding night had made her demand that she be spared the prelude this time. Men seemed to feel comfortable in their own skin all the time but Rhaenys was one of the many women who disliked being disrobed, disheveled, groped and japed about on her way to her husband. Viserys had gone even farther to honour her wish by declaring that the revelers would only be allowed to accompany her to the door of her chambers, so she walked down the halls to her bedchamber in silence, almost suffocating under the heavy aroma of all those flowers covering every free surface. From the other hill, Meleys roared. Had she felt her mistress' distress? Sometimes, Rhaenys could swear that the dragon was fully capable to do it.

Viserys entered when she was already attired in her nightgown – pale violet trimmed in silver. She stared at his reflection in the mirror, her hand coming down and the brush drumming on the dressing table. He nodded at it. "Keep doing your hair," he told her reflection; silently, she did, glancing at the mirror from time to time. Now, all the liveliness and joviality from an hour ago had gone out of him. He was sitting on the bed staring at the Myrish carpet as if he hoped he'd find some sense in its patterns. His face was entirely blank.

All of a sudden, Rhaenys remembered when she had seen this look on his face before. It had been thirteen years ago, when he had entered the bridal chamber where Aemma had waited. Poor Aemma, poor brave child! All of a sudden, Rhaenys shuddered, terrified by the notion that their marriage could in any way resemble his marriage to Aemma. She had to do something, yet a strange fatigue held her in her place, made even moving the silver hairbrush such a hard task.

"Are you cold?" he asked. In the looking-glass, he had seen her shiver. He looked around and took a cover, wrapped it loosely around her shoulders. His fingers were strangely warm against her skin, yet his face in the mirror was so pale.

"So, it's done," Rhaenys finally sighed., reaching up to touch his hands. "It really happened. Half of the realm was here and the other half outdid itself with gifts and congratulations…"

She felt the immediate tightening and loosening of his fingers. A look that she could not decipher crossed his eyes and was gone in a minute. "What? What did I say?"

"Nothing," he said quickly and she caught his eye and held it.

"I can see it is something. What did I say? Did someone express disagreement or…?"

He shook his head. "I was hoping that Daemon would write," he finally said. Clearly, looking at her in the mirror, instead of directly, made it easier for him as well. It was all so strange.

"Ah, I see. Daemon," Rhaenys finally said. She had wanted to slap the fool when she had heard of his drunken jape. She had not really expected that he'd send congratulations from wherever he was sulking. And Lady Rhea who was in the great hall right now had made it clear that she represented her House and not her husband. Not that Viserys needed this clarification.

"You love him still," she said, faintly surprised and then surprised that she was surprised. Daemon had always been capable to win his brother's forgiveness, no matter what he did. Was there anything bad enough not to merit forgiveness in Viserys' eyes? When Daemon was the one perpetuating it? "This callous, foul-mouthed fool."

He gave her half a smile. "You see? You call him callous and foul-mouthed but you don't think he actually relished my pain."

She snorted in derision that she did not try to hide. "What do I know? What does any of us know about other people? Even those we cherish most."

He stared at her, his expression solemn. "Isn't it too much? Aren't you exaggerating, Rhaenys?"

"I don't think so," she said. "We always think people are what we consider them to be and who can say where the truth lies?"

"I know you very well," he said softly.

"That's what you think," she said harshly.

"No, I'm sure." He paused. "And you're sure about me as well."

She looked at him and then said reluctantly, "Daemon will come back. And he won't apologize, although he'll regret adding to your suffering."

There was no doubt in her mind that he had suffered, for both Aemma and the babe.

_"I don't hate Viserys at all…."_

That was the truth of it. That was where they should start, perhaps. It was no worse beginning than any other.

"It wasn't always bad, was it?" she asked, hating how weak and needy she sounded.

His smile was as faint as hers. "No, not always. For once, I still remember the first kiss I ever received in my life. You gave it to me."

Surprise made her laughter bubbling and heartfelt. "How can you remember? You were just six!"

"I remember many things," he replied seriously and the sudden playful flicker in his eye died as they stared at each other in the looking-glass and the past slowly crept in the room with them, pale images lit by the candles of memory, fondness, joy, and grief. Rhaenys holding Viserys' hand at his first insecure steps because she loved being older and he preferred her to the leading strings; them hiding behind the columns and watch their parents as their grandfather hosted another splendid ball; them roaming the land on their dragons as underneath, smallfolk shaded their eyes and pointed; him holding her hand and sitting with her for hours as her lady mother died in a vain attempt to give Prince Aemon an heir. Rhaenys closed her eyes against the bad ones. They would not help her now.

Viserys slowly took her head in his hands, tilted it up, drew his thumbs down her cheeks. Rhaenys guided his fingers down her neck, although everything in her screamed that this was wrong, so very wrong, and what would follow would be even more wrong…

"I will stop," he said. "I swear it. I will stop the moment you say so."

"I won't," Rhaenys said. She had an inkling that the first time would be the hardest one and she wanted it done with.

He was not what she liked in a man at all. He was soft and plump while Corlys had been lean and muscled and yet when he drew her close, she realized it would have made no difference, had he been a man carved out of her dreams. It was not his physique that she minded, it was the fact that he wasn't Corlys and she ground her teeth not to scream.

Still, he was very kind and gentle with her and with a startle, Rhaenys realized that he behaved like one with almost no experience although Aemma's many pregnancy pointed at the contrary being true, let alone the Hightower girl! She could not find it in herself to give him any encouragement and yet when he rose to leave, fear shot through her. "Where are you going?" she asked before she could think. "Won't you stay?"

He stared at her. His eyes looked even more intent in the candlelight. "Do you want me to?" he asked and Rhaenys suddenly realized what had made him seek out Alicent Hightower. Acceptance. She wondered how many people at court had been aware of Aemma's painful reticence to any physical contact. Anger swept through her again as she remembered that Aemma had developed it only after being wedded and bedded… but it would do anyone any good now. The best way she could show her affection to Aemma was to win Viserys' affection, mother Aemma's daughter in the best way possible and not allow what had happened to Aemma repeat with Rhaenyra.

"I do," she said and his face relaxed in a way that was painful to watch.

_"Forgive him. He has suffered too."_

Her uncle was undoubtedly right – and what of it? Her mind started supplying a long list of Viserys' deficiencies, both of body and will, and it would not stop even as she willed it to, even as he lay back and held her close. She made herself comfortable against his warmth because she was entitled to this, at least, and stayed awake long after he had gone into exhausted sleep. She supposed she should be feeling anger, hatred, revulsion but oddly enough, she did not.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My inspiration says thanks to everyone who commented.

After the long winter that had ended briefly after Corlys' death, the spring was expected to last equally long, yet no one could predict how fierce would the spring rains be. Water sloshed and splashed everywhere and the Kingsroad was practically invisible under the flood. The sea seemed to have swollen and a few ships had barely made it to the harbour in various stages of dilapidation and lack of numerous enough crew. A few men had also swum to the shore which, in Rhaenys' mind, was even more impressive. But what troubled her most was not the sea or even the impassability of the roads. She was concerned with what lay under all this water that showed no intention to drop: just a few more rains like this, and the crops of the year would fail. And there _would_ be such rains. If the ravens that had stopped coming and the occasional rider that made it to the city gates could be any indication, the flood was affecting most of the crownslands, a big part of the Reach and almost all of the riverlands.

"Is there any way to make the water drain?" Rhaenys asked in the Small Council where she had _promised_ she would just listen, and the men looked at her as if she had grown a second head. She paid them no mind. "We cannot just wait for it to drop and dry over. Not if we want to save something of the crops."

A ripple went through the men as they looked at her as one. No one said anything but the Master of Laws was the one who answered without missing a heartbeat, "I don't think any of us here is competent to say either way, Your Grace. We're men of law, ships, arms, and books here. Perhaps there is but…"

"Knowing your incompetence may mark the start of true competence," Rhaenys and Viserys said at the same time and while most of the Small Council sat blinking at the sudden harmony between the royal couple reaching this far, the Master of Law smiled.

"Yes," he said. "That's what Barth the Hand always said."

 _Was it?_ Rhaenys wondered. She was sure that it was her grandmother that she had used to hear it from. She made a note to herself to ask Viserys what he remembered about this later.

The current Hand of the King shifted uncomfortably. Rhaenys supposed it was not pleasant to be reminded of how big shoes one needed to fill but no one deserved to be Hand of the King if he would not strive to contend with the best of men. _Or women_ , she reminded herself. Her grandmother would have made a Hand no worse than Barth – she was sure.

Viserys raised a hand – something that, to Rhaenys' discontent, he made so seldom that sometimes a whole meeting might pass without him taking a stand. Hearing what people wanted to tell you was a good thing but not when it deprived you of mind of your own. "So it's decided," he said. "Summon the architects. Summon the builders. The carpenters. I want to know what they can think of, together, to force the water drop and save the crops."

He paused, aware of the discontent in his Hand's eyes. The Master of Coin was hardly any more pleased as he knew that this would cost. _Does he expect that we'll take the money from his own pocket,_ Rhaenys wondered.

Viserys kept his silence and Rhaenys did her best not to look at him, as aware as he was that all the eyes were on them, that everyone expected him to speak with her words, as anxious to please her as he was to please them – but while the former could be taken as a mark of a generous and open-handed king, the second would speak of uxorious man, the greatest sin in the eyes of Westeros. So she looked at the table, not letting her eyes go on him even once. _Say it,_ she silently encouraged. _Say it, whatever it is. Do not the silence draw. Don't let them hound you with their disapproval. Who are they to approve of you?_

"I expect the first results to be reported to me in no more than two weeks," Viserys said. "Sooner, if possible."

"But Your Grace!" Ser Otto protested. "This time is too short, it won't suffice to even find the men we need…"

"I said two weeks," Viserys said mildly. "I didn't mention that you should be the one to do it. If you find it such a burden, I am sure the Queen will be ready to deal with this task."

Laughter bubbled inside Rhaenys. She did not dare look at him because if she did, they would both dissolve into giggles. For all his meekness, Viserys could be unexpectedly stubborn when he chose so – and very industrious about it as well. She was not surprised when Ser Otto assured him that there would be no need – and when she felt the man's eyes on her telling her that the party of those thinking that she had won the throne after all had just increased by one.

It wasn't bad for just a month of marriage and mere weeks after the ends of the celebrations. When a little later they were finally alone, she and Viserys, the last ones who stayed in the room of the Council, she went around the table and pressed a kiss on the top of his head, wondering if he could feel the gratitude and elation pouring out of her. He drew her hands to his chest and she was somewhat surprised when she felt the rapid beating of his heart, as if he was coming out of a battle.

* * *

"Aren't you going to sit down?"

Rhaenys shook her head no, staring at her son in the practice yard. Behind her, Viserys did take a seat and she realized that he had started getting tired too easily. Still, there was concern in this passing thought that surprised her. Only a few months ago, she would not have rejoiced but she would not have cared this much either. Could two months of marriage that she had never wanted push away the resentment of a decade and a half? She looked down at him. "Are you feeling fine?" she asked in a low voice, feeling his forehead. He laced his fingers with her immediately.

"My knees ache a bit," he replied and both of them watched as Laenor left his sword and took a spear instead. "He's quite good." There was surprise in Viserys' voice and Rhaenys shook her head, concern shooting through her again at this confirmation of her fears: her son _was_ good at arms. He was simply content with being good – because being excellent required some effort…

When Laenor's practice was over, he left the spear and headed towards them. Viserys was about to congratulate him but Rhaenys preempted him. "One more practice," she said. "Now."

Viserys stared at her, jaw down, but Laenor was not surprised. He simply turned and started everything again. Viserys sought Rhaenys' eye. "Why, by the Seven? He did everything the master at arms wanted of him."

"He let it show that he was eager for it to be over," Rhaenys said curtly. "Such a display is unbecoming a lord. What is he going to do one day when he rules Driftmark on his own? Show his councilors that he can't wait for their meeting to be over? Made the suppliants feel like fleas taking up his precious time?"

With the corner of her eye, she noticed that Rhaenyra who had come out to watch despite being supposed to be in her chambers having a lesson was now headed back rather quickly, and she smiled. The girl was not stupid. She had clearly seen herself taking double lessons today… which Rhaenys would have done. Not today, it was still too early. But Rhaenyra would no longer be allowed to command the maesters as she willed and she seemed to have grasped it.

"He did everything demanded of him," Viserys said again. His face was closed and for the first time in years, Rhaenys found herself in this same practice yard again, with a boy who always struggled to do what the seasoned tutors at arms demanded, a boy whose arms were weak and his legs not quick enough, a boy always compared unfavourably to his younger brother. Prince Baelon had never hid his disappointment with his eldest and while Alyssa had never been demanding, it had not been enough. For a moment, doubt came upon her and retreated. It was not the same thing at all. Viserys had tried to do what was expected of him and couldn't. Laenor simply did not care enough. She had never made her disapproval clear to people but anyway, Laenor was too charming for his own good. Lots of charm and no willingness to try anything seriously – this was a combination Rhaenys despised in women and particularly in men. If she had to play the evil stepmother to beat it out of Laenor, so be it.

And still… She had thought that she could never like a man who was clearly unable of self-control, as indicated by softness, flesh that was too excessive, and yet while this was undoubtedly true of Viserys, he was not repellent to her. She had come to find out that his body was much warmer than Corlys', that there was something endearing in his fear that he'd do something that would turn her away from him, the way Aemma had. She still wept for Corlys and felt guilty for sharing another man's bed but she found herself waking up snuggled up to Viserys more and more often. Sometimes, she woke up at night and sought him in the darkness because he was nice to the touch. Especially after yet another day after he had openly cherished her opinions in the Small Council. Tonight, he looked more subdued than usual, more distant and Rhaenys was somewhat surprised that it upset her, although it was nothing that lovemaking and staying silent in each other's arms afterwards couldn't fix. Aemma had been a proud soul, not afraid to be outspoken with those she cared about – was this why Viserys had looked elsewhere? Because she had been unable to offer the mending of a pure physical gesture? Was this how Alicent Hightower had gotten him? Rhaenys tried not to think about either of them. They were as unwelcome ghosts in her new bedchamber, much like Corlys was.

Tonight, a new ghost entered her dreams and woke her up all of a sudden. Barth the Hand! Septon Barth! Viserys stirred and looked at her with bleary eyes in the candlelight. Sometime at night as she slept, he had woken up and had fallen asleep reading. Papers were spilling everywhere over their covers and on the floor at his side. "What?" he asked drowsily.

"It's nothing," Rhaenys said. "Go to sleep," she added, leaning over to blow the candle out.

He might be too eager to please and not possessed of Corlys' steel but he was doing his best to fulfill his duties, be a good king. Rhaenys stroked his forehead in the newly descended darkness and went to sleep.

* * *

Three days later, the Hand of the King presented her with the old parchments he had insisted were not in his tower, his face dark with mortification. "I will present this… feature to the men tomorrow, Your Grace," he said. "They will determine if it is of any use."

"It will be," Rhaenys said with full confidence. "Barth's inventions always do."

It was clear that he did not like this new development at all but really, who was to blame that he had lived close to this discovery for four years and never found it? He was probably one of the men who thought Barth unworthy of his high office, although he was too smart to let it on. What could this peasant teach a son of House Hightower's? _He knows all about Essos and battles of old but Barth knew the pains of peasants,_ Rhaenys thought, remembering that many years ago, Barth and her grandmother had talked about such invention. But there had been such a flood once after Barth's death already! Had the invention been inefficient, or had her grandfather simply forgotten about the existence of the plans? He had forgotten so many things. In his last days, he had talked to Rhaenys as if she was still a young girl who would be Queen one day.

Watching the man in front of her, she already knew that he needed to go. Crops were the life of Westeros. Without crops, there was no life and he had shown no willingness to deal with such lowly matters. Which was worse, he had tried to thwart her attempts to gain access to his tower over this very matter. He placed his self-conceited pride over the good of the realm. Rhaenys had never liked him but she was now sure. He had to go.

Unfortunately, when she raised the matter to Viserys, he flushed and started talking of new chances and so on. After all, there were many who did not believe in Barth's inventions, right? Why should Ser Otto be any different? He was a great Hand in many aspects…

 _Like when he pushed for you over me?_ Rhaenys wanted to ask but didn't. There was something else that she asked and right now, that was the thing that _mattered_.

"I suppose it's because you're scared of how Lady Alicent will take it?"

Silence fell, dark and heavy. Viserys stared at her. "You… knew about Alicent? All the time?"

"Yes."

"You never said a thing."

"Why should I have? After Aemma died, you wished to take me as your wife, not her. You never promised me that I would be the only one."

He startled, swallowed, his face twitched. "Aemma? You think she-?"

He didn't dare finish and Rhaenys did not care to chase this particular subject. She did not want to see him hurt and she knew he'd never ask her directly if Aemma had known. Not now, not anytime soon. He'd only do it months and years later and he'd already know the answer by then.

"Fine," she said, putting the small clothing she was embroidering away. "Let's be clear. You had a relationship with this girl. You've had it for a long time. Somehow, I don't think you're keeping it up right now. I admit that I hoped it might be over. Actually, I thought it was… But perhaps I am wrong? Perhaps you're only keeping appearances and intend to go back to her when a few months pass? Or when I get with child? I'd really like to know what I am living in. Does my wish to have her father removed from office interfere with your plans with her? Are you afraid that you won't be welcome with her any more?"

"It isn't like this."

"Then what is it?"

"I have no intention to go back to her, ever. I… I needed someone. Do you remember what my father used to say about me? He was right, I depend on people. I wanted to have someone and Aemma was not it – I know it's my fault…"

 _You're damned right that it is._ Still, Rhaenys did not understand. She would not be surprised if he had bedded Alicent on the eve of his wedding to her, needing the assurance that she would be there even if Rhaenys rejected him in all but bed. This did not upset her at all and he was clever enough to know it. So, what was it?

"So?"

"She was an innocent," he said softly. "She took care of Grandfather for years and let me tell you, it was no pleasant task…"

Had he truly fallen for this oldest trick on earth? Rhaenys wanted to shake him but she had to admit that she was curious about what explanation Viserys had found about Alicent's rumoured affair with Daemon to preserve the image of the caring girl who had accepted him when Aemma had become increasingly anxious and unpleasant to be around as she swelled up with this last child, in addition to her aversion to physical touch. But alas, that was not to be – and a moment later, her angry amazement was forgotten in the grave impact of what he told her.

"She's with child, Rhaenys. I ruined her and if I remove her father from office, it will be even worse. I harmed her unforgivably."

The words were said. Rhaenys could only stare as he could not decide what he was going to do now. He reached out for her, reconsidered, reached out again. She shook his hand away.

"Well, some things don't change," she said in a voice she barely recognized as her own. "And others do change indeed. I never thought I'd have to go through this again…"

He startled. "What? You mean – Velaryon?"

Rhaenys laughed, curtly and angry, and ugly. "Oh it wasn't the same. _He_ didn't extoll her virtues to me…" Viserys flinched, as if he had not realized that _he_ had done this. "And he didn't seek to _have_ anyone else. He just didn't see any need to go without when I wasn't at Driftmark. And then the woman got with child and he was stupid enough to come and _tell_ me. I suppose he felt better afterward. Honest. Honourable and so on. And it never occurred to him that I wouldn't feel better at all."

He was staring at her and then he started expanding that he would have never told her if she had not insisted on Ser Otto's removal, that he was just feeling guilt and nothing more… She cut him off. "Shut up!" she snapped, giving up on any attempts to control her voice. "Shut up and let me think! Because you know it isn't just about her at all and the gods see that you clearly can't think of a solution. Let me think a way to prevent this from interfering with our lives. And let's be clear: she cannot stay at King's Landing. I don't care that you won't go to her ever again. I am not having your bastard's mother here in the Red Keep, no more than I had Corlys'!"

He stopped trying to calm her down. She rose and started pacing, at which point the small piece of clothing came into his view and he bit his lip, flooding joy mixing with bitter regrets.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented, from me and my inspiration.

The wave hit him in the face as soon as he had the great gates open. The guards standing there night and day jumped aside even as they were drawing the huge wings apart, for the sudden rise in heat could had had men double over or even pass away. Viserys cherished it. "There is no need to come with me," he told Ser Steffon Darklyn and the Kingsguard nodded gratefully. He had no desire to enter further into the heated hole. "Be careful, Your Grace", he said nonetheless and Viserys smiled.

"Why, Ser, if I come across an assassin, I'll make sure to summon you to drag the poor soul out."

In the light of the torches lining the walls of the entry hall, the smile on Ser Steffon's face was visible. He'd never let himself grin so openly in the Red Keep but here, there was no one to see him. "And here I was thinking that one day, you might change. It isn't funny."

Viserys shrugged. "Why should I change what the Seven made perfect?" he jested. Steffon was a boyhood friend of his and perhaps the only one from his retinue who understood what kept dragging him here when he needed time to think. Perhaps he even knew what made him need to think now.

With a single torch in his hand, Viserys entered the Dragonpit, the heat increasing with every step he tool. The heat and the smell of death, energy, unbearable rot and strength unimaginable that were dragons. They make us strong as well, he thought, going past an unfortunate sheep that had somehow managed to escape the dragons, only to be trapped by the elaborate corridors and this heat. It had died anyway.

He entered the heart of the Dragonpit. Now, even he started sweating a little but the old pain of loss would have told him he was close even before his body did. As he went past Syrax' lair, the dragon gave him a long look and hissed at the torch. Viserys had once asked Septon Barth is dragons could see in the dark. It was clear that they disliked torches, at least. Viserys noticed that Syrax was uncharacteristically meek and content and knew Rhaenyra must have flown her a little before. He'd have to talk to Rhaenys to talk to her about this… but he and Rhaenys were not on speaking terms right now, were they? He did not even dare ask her about the small piece of clothing she was working on. It felt indecent, somehow.

Vhagar gave him the long look he had been long taking as accusing. Viserys stopped in front of her lair. "No, Vhagar, I can't bring him back," he said but the dragon did not seem to believe it. It hissed a torrent of flame that made Viserys quickly step aside. As undisturbed by heat as he was, there were things that were certain to turn him into roasted meat. He wasn't welcome, it was clear. He wondered for how more long Rhaenys would keep punishing Laena by keeping her away from… "Ah," he said. "You were here."

Rhaenys' daughter emerged from behind one of the crops of rocks they had placed here and there to make it more homelike for the dragons. Queen Rhaenys' invention, or so the word was. "How did you see me?" she asked, curtsying. Viserys would tell her not to bother but Rhaenys insisted that manners should never be forgotten by those who were still learning theirs.

"The hair," he said and she touched the silver tresses. "Ah."

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Mother has me confined to my chambers," Laena explained. "I think you might have heard of it."

"Which explains why you're here," Viserys supposed and she grinned irreverently. As removed from the world as she was, taken only by her books and dragon, he had quickly come to realize that Laena was as adventurous as her late father. The word can't seemed to be missing in her vocabulary and… "By the Seven, how did you get here?" he asked. And then, horrified. "You didn't… you didn't leave the building in the Red Keep walking on the roofs, did you?"

She did not answer. Instead, she said, "I just wanted to fly Vhagar a little. It isn't dangerous," she added quickly. "Who am I to meet in the sky? Who would knock me from her?"

"Every storm coming from the sea," Viserys said. "It's the season of the great rains, or have you forgotten? Wait for me here, I'll return soon and then, we'll be going back to the Red Keep."

She looked as if she was about to start trying to convince him but then reconsidered. It seemed that she had grasped it wouldn't work. While Viserys admired courage and wasn't above looking away from the children's harmless little adventures, this was not harmless at all. He shivered at realizing that soon enough, Rhaenyra would be old enough to repeat Laena's antics.

Laena went close to Vhagar and Viserys went on his way, going past the lairs one by one. It soothed him and grieved him at the same time, and it gave him strange peace of mind, being so close to them who were of his blood. Yet his own was not among them… but soon enough, he'd have someone to give a dragon egg to. His heir. He had little doubt that Rhaenys would give him a son – if not this time, then the next. But what should he do when Alicent's child arrived before Rhaenys'? The memory of Aemma was still seared in his mind bright and painful. He had done his best to protect her from the gossip at court but she always knew, she got to know from somewhere. She knew how deficient people thought her. How even the lowest ladies in-waiting could look at her with ridicule. How had he allowed to reach a moment when he'd subject another woman he held dear to such pressure?

He stood before the last lair, Meleys', and stared at the dragon inside. Like Vhagar, she had not been ridden in a while but she did not seem to mind it. Her strength was controlled. Perhaps she knew it was only temporary? Did she trust her mistress this much? Viserys almost expected a river of flame to give voice to Rhaenys' feelings from a few hours ago but Meleys only opened an eye, gave him a look and closed it back. Perhaps she remembered him from the time he had been Rhaenys'?

Was he now? He didn't know. What he knew was that he had to make it right. He, not Rhaenys. It would be unfair to expect it of her, although he had no doubt that she'd deal with it calmly and competently.

How had it come to this? He had thought that Alicent took precautions not to find herself in this predicament. No man of worth would want a wife who had been proven unchaste, even if it had been with the King. Why had Alicent failed?

Rhaenys seemed to think that it had been a conscious failure on her part. Ridiculous, of course. Alicent's father was the Hand of the King! What did she stand to gain? She was no common whore. She had taken care of his grandfather… but many a woman had taken care of Aemma without caring about her at all but caring for the coin he gave them very much indeed.

After all, what did it matter? Viserys felt with certainty that with Rhaenys, he could have a peaceful and happy life. Besides, he owed it to her to make up for the stance his father and their grandfather had taken once; staring at Meleys, he wondered if he was trying to make up for that Great Council as well. No, he decided. It had been different. Rhaenys had been given a standing chance there, unlike nine years earlier.

He sat down on a small rock because the faint pain in the knees that plagued him after standing or pacing for far too long had returned. Since Rhaenys' outburst, he had crossed to the riverlands and back at least twice!

Alicent had not agreed to take the tea that would cleanse her and Viserys was not a monster enough to force it into her mouth. That left him with limited opportunities to mitigate the scandal and none that would not have her hate him and it bothered him when people disliked him. He had told Rhaenys the truth claiming that he did not wish to return to Alicent. She had been something that he had needed at the time but no longer. She was accepting but she did not have this – this something that pushed him to do better even when he was sure in the constancy of Rhaenys' affection, the one that would stay even if he failed. She was just a girl. A girl that he had wronged.

He was a man with a ghost to atone to and a wife he would never shame. Something deep within him told him that should he miss this chance, he might never get another one, that he might do harm to his marriage that could never be repaired. He rose and headed back, nodding at Laena who was still next to Vhagar's lair to come along.

"Are you going to tell Mother?" the girl asked and Viserys smiled. As daring as she was, she was just a child.

"No," he said. "But you must give me your word that it will never happen again. It is dangerous, Laena."

She squirmed, clearly unwilling, but finally made a promise and they shook on it.

In the Red Keep, Rhaenys had finally gone to sleep. Viserys knew that tonight, he was not welcome in her bed but in the light of the single candle, too pale to wake her up, surely there was no harm to stand some time and watch her sleep?

* * *

 

At the end, the conversation did not trouble him as much as he had expected. Rhaenys would have likely just informed Ser Otto that he was not the Hand anymore but she had long nursed dislike of him. Viserys felt that he owed the man an explanation because Ser Otto had served him ably and competently. "With the new direction the internal deals of the realm are taking, I can no longer put your talents to good use," he said. "I'm afraid that for a while, we'll focus on more domestic and pragmatic matters than visions of brilliancy."

The Hand – the former Hand – did not give any inkling that he was affected at all. "I understand," he said and Viserys felt ashamed for a moment – before Ser Otto asked, "Is this the Queen's wish?"

Anger gripped Viserys without warning. The man had always been against Rhaenys, in all… and now he was attacking Viserys' ability to have a mind of his own? "It's my duty to do what's best for the realm," he said in controlled voice. "And it's my pleasure to obey the Queen's wishes."

Cowardly, he was wondering if this meeting would spare him the need to inform Alicent of what was going to take place in person. Of course not. His father did not know it all. And the truth should not come out even here, in Viserys' own study. With anyone but Alicent. On the other hand, wouldn't people know what happened when she gave birth prematurely, just five or six month after her wedding? If Rhaenys knew about Alicent, surely there were other people who had grasped it? Not Ser Otto, of course, but…

"What's going to happen to my daughter?" the man asked and Viserys drew a short breath. So she had told her father? They had agreed on keeping silence for a while.

"She'll be wed to a lord in the Reach," Viserys said. "I am looking for someone suitable right now."

Ser Otto's face changed and Viserys' shame deepened. That had not been the way to treat the daughter of a loyal and productive servant but at the time, he had not been himself.

"I can arrange this myself," Ser Otto said coldly.

"Can you?" Viserys asked, anger suddenly returning. Ser Otto looked disappointed. Not a disappointed father but something… else. Perhaps he had hoped to have Alicent wed a powerful lord? For the Hand of the King, this was no unreasonable ambition, and yet something about the man's countenance told him that all was not as it looked. "She must have told you that she would not suffer the child expelled from her womb. And while you're arranging it, she will start showing."

Silence drew. Ser Otto sighed. "I guess you will wish for her to leave with me, Your Grace?" he asked, matter-of-factly, and Viserys glanced at him, surprised. "I thought you might wish to keep the child around, after Queen Aemma's… troubles."

This time, Viserys was rendered speechless. How could anyone think this? "I will provide for the child," he said. "But I see no reason to keep him or her around when…"

He paused. He was almost sure that Rhaenys was with child but he wasn't about to say it to Ser Otto. Who was the man to warrant it? The very suggestion he had made was shocking. Comparing the disappointed hopes of a realm to the mere birth of a child? If it had not been for the Seven Kingdoms, he would have never subjected Aemma and himself to those terrible hopes and waiting, let alone the shared bed they had both hated.

Keeping the child around? How so? When he had been wed for mere months? When Rhaenys was expecting? What kind of man with half a brain would let his wife and the daughter of a servant give birth at the same time? Let the birth of his first child with Rhaenys – his first living child after so many tragedies – be overshadowed? How dared Ser Otto assume on his King's behalf?

"I will take care of the matter," he finally said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

He hoped Rhaenys would approve. He knew his grandmother would have. It wasn't so hard to say no, he thought. In fact, he was surprised at how easy it had felt.

* * *

 

That it was a boy, everyone knew before Rhaenys. At some point after the birth, she must have been told because how could the maesters and midwives not have told her? But he had been malpositioned ever so slightly and pushing him out had taken as much time as pushing Laena and Laenor together, with hands repositioning her and reaching inside her. At the end, Rhaenys had not known where she was. She dimly remembered falling into sweet oblivion as around her people shouted at her not to.

When she woke up, it was dark and unbearably hot in the chamber. She had kicked all the covers away and her hands were curved under her belly, as if she were trying to ward the pain off – and oh, there was pain still, a living breathing thing… She drew a breath and looked around, confused. Viserys was sitting at her bedside, the chamber lit by just a few candles in the distant end. She looked at him with a silent question. "Do you want me to tell you?" he asked softly.

She nodded.

"It's a boy!"

She burst in tears.

* * *

 

Despite the harsh birth, she recovered so swiftly that the maesters were amazed. Just in a few weeks, she returned to the chamber of the Small Council and a month later, she was already taking the babe to fly on Meleys. And when the second boy came a year later, the smallfolk started talking that so much happiness was bound to anger the gods.

Rhaenys laughed at this.

The deals of the realm unfolded as they should be. Septon Barth's device proved successful, adding another gemstone in his crown of a great inventor and implementor. The trade with Essos was flourishing. The whispers that the King was ruled by his lady wife proved false as the next Hand of the King was not Lord Boremund Baratheon, her greatest champion, but Matthos Tyrell. There was even talk of forging a closer relationship with Dorne as Princess Rhaenyra grew in age and beauty.

And then, the disaster struck.

When the news of the fever rose to the top of Aegon's Hill, Viserys and Rhaenys looked at each other. There was no need to say anything. Those childhood fevers! So quickly spreading and so hungry. Rhaenys was sure that nothing aged a woman like those evil childhood illnesses. If not for them, women would stay forever young and perhaps even immortal. She certainly felt like rising from a grave each time she saw the end of a fever in Driftmark or now King's Landing without any of her own children being affected. And the diseases returned every year.

Immediately, she ordered that each child should not leave their own chamber and limited the number of people serving them. Rhaenyra grumbled because she thought herself a grown up and the fact that Laena and Laenor were not bounded by such restrictions made her feel even more wronged but her father told her that it was not to be discussed in a voice that made her take back her next objection before she even said it.

"I want you to stop meeting people as well," Viserys said, turning to Rhaenys, and despite disliking the prospect as much as Rhaenyra, she didn't say anything. Their next child would be born in about three months and she was prone to catching everything from everyone. It was better to be prudent.

Now, even Viserys stopped visiting her or the children because he received all kinds of people who in turn had been in contact with all kinds of people. Rhaenys was bored to death pacing in her chambers, listening to the distant roar of the dragons on the other hill and wanting to roar with them.

The day she did was the day when, despite all precautions, the nursemaid of her older, four year old son rushed in her chambers. Who had let her in?

"Your Grace," she panted, "his breathing is labored and he's very warm…"

* * *

 

They burned them together, on the same pyre, as in Maegor's Holdfast Rhaenys howled and tore her hair out, cursing her husband. Viserys had refused to let her attend. Actually, there were guards at her doors to prevent her from going out. She was not even allowed to say farewell. She howled and cursed as from the other side of the door Kingsguard, guards, and servants wondered in horror when she'd lose her mind irreparably.

She only saw Viserys a week after the fever had died in all of King's Landing. He entered her chamber as hesitantly as he had in that night long ago, the night of their wedding, and Rhaenys looked at him in the mirror, the hairbrush falling from her hand. He had gained flesh, his eyes were sunken with lack of sleep, he looked exhausted. She could say that he wanted to come to her, that if she only raised a hand, he'd take her in his arms and make it better for bothof them. He needed comfort but she no longer did. She was dried and indifferent in her core, so indifferent that she didn't even feel a stir of malicious joy at seeing that he suffered as much as her. When she had needed comfort, he had stayed away, not realizing the precipice that she had been teetering over. She would not offer him any now. She'd stay healthy, for herself and the babe about to be born, as he had demanded of her - imposed on her - before and nothing more.

She stayed as she was as he silently turned and left, closing the door softly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to everyone who commented, it's great interacting with you!

"You did… what?"

Rhaenys could not believe it. He couldn't have done it. Had he already forgotten the strife not even ten years ago? The pressure from and for Daemon to become heir? The insistence from more than one that their grandfather's decision from another ten years ago should be ignored as a turning point and Rhaenyra should be made heir – a huge risk, the very suggestion of which showed just how intolerable the situation with Daemon had become? The cruel jape Daemon had made? This, he had not forgotten, Rhaenys knew it for sure because he had told her this much more than a few times when he had been particularly open to her, in the moments they no longer shared.

She looked at Ser Steffon who sat at the other side of the board game. He didn't quite look back but she could say he felt her eye and refused to address her, offer support. She was sure he wanted Daemon back no more than he did, so… why? The silent disapproval in his posture startled her and she was surprised at how much it stung. How stupid! She and this particular Kingsguard might have become friendly over time but he was Viserys' man first of all. He was not her friend. She had friends of her own. Why did she need the friendship of one who served her when loyalty and respect should suffice? It was Viserys' flaw, not hers.

She looked at Viserys' profile. Even with the overstuffed chair, she could see how slumped he was, his shoulders sagging down, his hands never moving against the table. In the week she had been allowed out of her chambers, she was sometimes still startled at how much weight he had gained all of a sudden – she could say that right now, he was suffering in the aftermath of all those meals she had seen being carried out of his chambers. After that first night, he had never tried to go to her for more than formalities, waiting for her to make the first step but she was so terribly tired. Indifference coiled itself around her in a haze that was invisible but no less potent and crippling. She desired for nothing. She could not give him the closeness that he craved. The children were still shell-shocked in the wake of the death of their little half-brothers and they were children still, even Laena.

Of course he had had summoned Daemon back.

She was not above starting a quarrel in Ser Steffon's presence; the man had more reason than any other to consider her a willful shrew. But the warning in his eyes startled her, made her feel something, perhaps an echo of his own sympathy for Viserys.

"I'll start making the preparations, then," she said. "The preparations for the birth have almost been completed, after all."

Just two months ago, she would have mouthed to Ser Steffon what his next move on the board should be, for in strategic games he was about as good against Viserys as Viserys had been against him in the practice yard years ago. But not now. She curtsied to her lord husband, turned and left, startled at the sudden movement inside her. The child was already big enough for the movements to decrease in numbers.

"I'll send you some tea," she said from the door. Fennel tea was the remedy she had given all of her children at one time or another to help with stomach discomfort.

She was expected to take care of him as his wife and queen, after all.

* * *

At least there was no great feast to honour Daemon's return. Rhaenys felt sick enough just by having to watch him offer his made up crown to Viserys – and she had not felt sick since she had passed the first three moons. A flutter of the urge to shelter Viserys that had come to her sometimes in the past suddenly made its presence known as she watched the joy on her husband's face. At this moment, he believed that Daemon was sincere. He needed to believe it. Rhaenys, however, knew that soon enough Daemon would hurt him again, no matter if he meant it or not. Snakes followed their nature when killing through a bite. That was how they were made. She could already hear the whispers all around, whispers about Daemon, Viserys, and her, wondering if the old arguments would flare again in a month or so. She wished Viserys had not summoned him back, even when Daemon presented her with a magnificent coronet shining with gemstones in all shades imaginable and gallantly claimed that only a woman beautiful enough on her own could do the jewel justice. Especially when he gallantly presented her with them.

That night, she waited for Viserys to come. Should he enter, she would welcome him as he desired, as she desired at the moment. But the door did not open. He did not come.

* * *

Two days later, she heard that he had stayed in Rhaenyra's chambers for an hour. An hour! The young attendant who had only recently arrived from the West actually sagged as she told her mistress this, as if she was trying to find a way to shrink. Rhaenys stood frozen.

Her first thought was to discuss it with Viserys. There might be a wall between them now but he still respected her opinion even if he did not follow it. But would he heed her this time? In his eyes, Rhaenyra was still his little girl who could do no wrong. At fourteen, she was still a child for him, and as removed from men as one, a notion no doubt strengthened by Laena's indifference to men and marriage. And to be fair, Rhaenys did not _know_ that Daemon was courting Rhaenyra. He would no doubt claim that he had been just visiting his niece, Rhaenyra would say the same – she was smart enough to want to avoid trouble – and Rhaenys would come out as overly suspicious, a stupid woman King Jaehaerys and the lords had been right to deny. And it could turn out that Daemon had not done anything to merit her suspicions. Not yet. He was a smart and cunning man. A very attractive one, too, Rhaenys had to admit. Right now, she wished that he had undergone some physical changes to make him less so!

No. She would not go to Viserys. She would not go to Rhaenyra either. There was no use to turn her stepdaughter against her. Their current accord had been hard-won and Rhaenys would not give her a reason to feel mistreated now – it had taken the better part of two years for Rhaenyra to learn that enforcing rules was no mistreatment and almost another one to get her to enjoy structured life. Rhaenys was not going to squander all she had achieved with an ill-advised arguments or prohibitions with a girl who had only recently discovered that boys existed.

Of course, Daemon was no boy which was hardly comforting.

She felt a little tired but she went on her everyday walk. The day before, her belly had gone down and now she felt it as uncomfortable weight but she believed walks were good for the babe. Two Kingsguard were about to follow her but she waved them off. Each time in the weeks before the birthing bed she was so anxious that she needed her time alone. Truly alone.

Her steps led her to the gallery overlooking the practice yard. By the noise greeting her, she could say that Daemon was there. What she did not expect was to see Laena behind the railings in the other side of the gallery. As she came near, Rhaenys realized that her daughter could not look away from a scene beneath them. There could be no mistake which one it was. There was only one fight worth watching and Rhaenys silently shouted for Ser Steffon. "Who are you for?" she asked.

Laena startled and blushed. Blushed! Rhaenys could not believe it. Oh yes, she could believe it. She had been Rhaenyra's age when she had become infatuated with Corlys; at Laena's, she had loved him already. She tried to reassure herself that Daemon was much older than any of the girls but it did not help; Corlys had been way older to her than this.

"I am not sure," Laena said. Lying to her mother – another sign that she was not indifferent to Daemon. Rhaenys couldn't wait for the month to be over, so they would know which girl they should offer to the Prince of Dorne. Whichever it was, getting her away from Daemon would mean one headache less.

In Rhaenyra's chambers, she found her stepdaughter behind a board game. She seemed to be playing both sets of figures. Rhaenys stared at the shining marble elephants, dragons, and royals that she had given Rhaenyra herself as the girl rose to offer her curtsy and an embrace, awkward because of Rhaenys' size.

"I've missed our games," the girl said – the greatest admission that she had missed Rhaenys that she would ever give. Rhaenys herself had taught her the moves, the defense, the hidden attacks. Neither Laena nor Laenor were good at those and Corlys had never been interested but Viserys and Rhaenyra were surprisingly good. She had spent many pleasant an hour over those games and she was pleased to see that Rhaenyra had not abandoned them, although she was a little surprised at not hearing of her new partner. An unpleasant thought came to her mind.

"Has your uncle played with you?" she asked. That explained the positioning of the figures. Rhaenyra's opponent was very good indeed, although a little reckless. A splendid positioning for attack, although not a very prudent one.

There was some tension in the girl's posture now; looking around, Rhaenys saw that Rhaenyra's splendid chambers had acquired even greater polish. Myrish laces; silver ewers encrusted with gems; new pelts on a few sofas that had not been here before.

"No," her stepdaughter said. "You have."

Rhaenys' laughter stopped. She inspected the figures once again. Was this how Rhaenyra saw her? Resembling Daemon in style? With uncomfortable feeling, she remembered her father saying laughingly that the then little Daemon seemed to be as fiery as her. Rhaenys? Being compared to Daemon?

"I see I'm winning," Rhaenys said, looking at Rhaenyra with her eyebrows arches. "You are very fair if you play like this."

"Being fair isn't the hard part," the young Princess replied. "The hard part is playing like you. Sometimes… sometimes you change…"

 _You change styles,_ was what she meant but Rhaenys could not help but feel that it was true in other things as well. And still as she sat behind the boarding game to win by finishing the match as herself, deciding against mentioning about Daemon again today, what worried her was that Rhaenyra's game, although doomed to fail, was even bolder than her own.

* * *

Rhaenys turned, her heart in her mouth. In the relaxing match in Rhaenyra's chambers and later, she had almost forgotten that there were other people than her and hers in the world. Certainly not in the Queen's Garden where the merciless sun had burned flowers in droves despite all the efforts of the gardeners who watered them twice a day. She stared at them again, seared like her soul…

"Did I scare you, Your Grace?" Daemon drawled.

"You could never scare me," she replied sharply and he laughed.

"Ah, still as sharp as Dark Sister, I see. And to think I've heard you were half-mad with grief. How people exaggerate…"

"Indeed," Rhaenys agreed but something in her face must have shown how she felt because something in his made her think that he actually regretted his cruel barb.

"What are you doing here on your own?" he asked. "Aren't there attendants to take your hand and lead you to the nearest bench if you get tired? Kingsguard to save you in case a rogue prince appears?"

Rhaenys' mouth twitched. As little as she desired to admit it, he was _amusing_. He looked… by the Seven, he almost looked like he was flirting with her. If he used this charm against Rhaenyra, it was no wonder that the girl was anxious. Excited, perhaps? Did she see him as a dashing figure? Why not if Rhaenys almost did and unlike Rhaenyra, she _knew_ what he was?

"Am I in danger?" she asked, refusing to take part in his game.

His smile flickered off. "Ah Rhaenys! Must you be so hostile? Couldn't it be that I am no longer any rogue, that I have come to miss my family and appreciate them and I am happy to be reunited with them?"

"No," she said flatly. "Even Viserys doesn't believe this, you know. When he gets better, he'll see you again for what you are."

"And you will help him with this, no doubt," he suggested and laughed. "What, am I going to be sent away? Like you did his woman and her child?"

Rhaenys forced herself to stay calm. "You'll have to ask Viserys himself," she said. "Do I look like him, per chance?"

Daemon laughed again. "Ah my dear cousin! Even now when you would no longer see him, you're ready to defend him till your claws turn red. You two are fascinating to watch. You're ready to defend him from what everyone knows is the truth; he argued with Father about your removal from Dragonstone when he must have known that he'd lose. Some might call the two of you precious; I'd prefer another word."

But Rhaenys did not care to hear the word. Something else had gotten her attention. "He… he did? Argue with your father about Dragonstone?"

Daemon's laughter stopped. He gave her a look that was astoundingly serious. "Did he not tell you? I expected that he would do so long ago to win back some of your good graces. I was still eleven but I remember the quarrel. I had never heard Viserys raising his voice to anyone and to this day, he remains the only one I have ever heard raising his voice at Father. The only man, I mean." They both knew how their grandmother had met her lord husband's decision.

Was he lying? But then, what reason would he have? Make her ask Viserys and when he would not lie to her, saw further discord between them? What would he gain? It was her and Viserys' child that was the potential obstacle for him, not their happiness, be it there or not.

She _had_ asked Viserys, once. Or rather, she had blamed him. Five years ago, when he had offered marriage to her. He had not defended himself. Or had he? That terrible time was all a blur in her mind. She made a step back because Daemon was suddenly too close, or so she thought.

Her foot got caught in some roots the gardeners had bared out for some king of procedure; with a sharp cry, Rhaenys stumbled backwards and fell heavily on her back, gasping in horror. Daemon leaned over her just a minute later, his face white. "Are you fine?"

She wasn't sure. He held out a hand to help her up but she waved at him to wait. She waited for her pounding heart to steady, waited to make sure that she was fine… and then, with a sharp pain that shot down her back and her belly, she was not.

Cursing, Daemon leaned over and took her in his arms. "We'll be there in a minute," he said and when they reached the first courtyard on their way, he shouted for the maesters.

* * *

It was cold and hot when she woke up, a reminder of the birth of her first child with Viserys so vivid that she started weeping. Viserys rose from his chair at her bedside. "What?" he asked worriedly. "What hurts? I'll call the maesters imme-"

"No," Rhaenys said but she could not stop weeping which made him more uncomfortable.

"What is it then?" he asked. "Is it my presence? The women said you have called for me in your throes but of course, I'll leave right now…"

"No!" Rhaenys cried, panicked. He was about to sit back in his chair but she moved a little to make room at the edge of her bed. He leaned over and took her in his arms and when she had wept herself dry, she realized just for how long he had not held her. Something in these long hours of pain had taken away her enmity towards him and she was now ashamed. He had only tried to protect her and the child she still did not feel real and she had been so cruel and unkind. "I'm sorry," she whispered, feeling that his sobs had yet to fade. "I'm so sorry."

It was a long cry from the joy they had experienced four years ago. Finally, Rhaenys moved a little more yet, silently inviting him to join her in bed. She could feel the faint aroma of herbs on the rugs, feel the crisp cleanliness of new sheets. He removed his robes and laid down next to her. Rhaenys snuggled into his familiar warmth and finally dared ask, "Viserys? It is not a boy, is it? I think they mentioned…"

She still hoped, although she knew it was pointless. He hesitated. "No," he said. "It's twins , you see. Healthy girl children, with no ill effects from being a little earlier. That's all that matters."

It was not, it was not, it was not… Rhaenys felt that tears wanted to escape but as she'd later learn, she had sweated, vomited, and used the chamber pot so much that combined with her recent outpour of tears, there was simply not enough water in her body to form new ones. Her eyelids burning, she snuggled more deeply against Viserys and tried to pretend that he was right.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented!

Many women claimed that birth was the thing that scared them most in the world after having experienced it once. For Rhaenys, it was her first time going to the privy that she dreaded – she was sure that she was not the only one but refinement would not let them say so. She squirmed and delayed as much as she could but finally, the needs of her bladder could not be ignored anymore… and her bowels had yet to have their word.

She struggled out of bed, grateful for the few candles left to light the chamber dimly. She was trying not to wake Viserys up; she wanted him to have some sleep since it was evident that he had been awake since yesterday morning – his exhausted face told her this much. Their reconciliation, as sweet as it had been, had carried the sharp taste of bitterness, pain of the loss that had been finally shared and this had exhausted him additionally. _Let him sleep._

The walk to the privy was a very long one and the moment she sat cautiously, Rhaenys knew what would happen. The floor rose to meet her.

"What happened?" she asked faintly when she woke up. It was getting dark again now and she dimly realized that she had slept all day long.

"You swooned right there," Viserys replied. "You silly woman, why didn't you wake me up? I thought I would die when I heard the crash and saw you lie there…"

Her head was throbbing. She raised a hand to it gingerly and frowned, feeling the bump. "Why?" she asked. "I hadn't even…" She blushed.

Viserys decided against telling her that when he had leaned over her, he had found her in a tiny puddle of her own piss.

"I didn't get around to telling you," he finally said. "You started bleeding immediately after delivering the second afterbirth. They couldn't get you to stop. It was…" He shuddered. "I thought…"

Rhaenys instinctively knew that he had entered after hearing the commotion. She knew the panic reigning in a birthing room when someone was dying all too well – her mother had died like this, with her babe still half-stuck inside her. But it was Aemma that he was thinking about. Somewhere along the way, she had become complacent, her fear of birth fading a little after each successful one. Had he never stopped harbouring this fear – that had almost turned justified? In the haze of her tiny shreds of memory, she saw his face, felt his hand – he had not let go off her for a moment. She had actually seen him drowse like this.

"You were very ill, Rhaenys," he finally said. "You slept for a night and a day after giving birth. I am sorry I did not tell you. I should not have let you go to the privy on your own. I will not repeat this mistake."

And he did not. For two weeks, Rhaenys would not be left alone for a moment, no matter sleeping or awake. There was someone always accompanying her to the privy, although the humiliating accident did not repeat. In the beginning, they fed her like a child since the second bleeding had left her unable to raise the spoon to her mouth. Sometimes, it was Viserys who did it – he came to her after the evening feast and to the horror of everyone around spent the night with her. Rhaenys wondered why the outrage. Surely no one would think that he demanded his conjugal rights? Once or twice, he offered to return to his own bedchamber but she said no. She might feel more uninhibited in her movements without him but her close brush with death had shaken her more than she cared to admit. She wanted someone close when she woke up, gasping for breath at night, and she could not expect of her ladies to hold her like he did.

The babes were put to her breast on the second day, for her mostly, not to let her breasts plugged. But there was no milk to be had, no matter how vigorously they sucked, and Rhaenys felt guilty for not enjoying them. She wanted her boys with burning as searing as a true fire in her veins while the tiny helpless girls only awoke some protective instinct in her. Joy was so faint.

"Aenor," she said in the second week of their life when they could no longer stay nameless. Alysanne's name had been a given but the second one was proving surprisingly hard. "I like the name Aenor, Viserys." _If that's even a name,_ she thought. But she liked the sound of it and he did not mind.

It was more than two months before she was able to return to the chamber of the Small Council and by this time, she had already been besieged by the pleas of women left without the breadwinner of the family – because Daemon had returned to his stark ideas of justice when he had no right to execute any.

"What use is there to have a family dying of starvation because the father had had his hand cut off?" she demanded.

Daemon seemed unimpressed. "Perhaps that the children will learn that stealing is no way to support a family?" He shrugged.

"It'll be hard for them to learn if they die young," Rhaenys retorted and it was a sign of their dislike for Daemon that most men started nodding when none of them cared overly much if the family of a thief would die or not.

"You are not about to disperse justice, Daemon," Viserys said harshly. "You are not entitled to do so. You are no longer Commander of the City Watch and even when you were, you knew damned well that I did not approve of your punishments!"

A pang of pain touched Rhaenys' heart. While she had rejoiced watching Viserys get more confident, have his way with the Small Council and others and not be afraid to cut where cutting was needed and she enjoyed watching Daemon have the reprimand he deserved, it was not in her lord husband's nature to be _brutal_. Especially not to those he loved and she knew that he still loved Daemon despite the disappointment his brother was turning out to be again. The last pain had made something in him snap and sometimes he was turning into a man Rhaenys did not recognize. Behaviors that would not bother her in other men did so in him.

"Soon, I'll be well enough to try again," she said that night in a vain attempt to return some semblance of the happiness he had enjoyed with her. Yes, they had been happy. Or happy enough. Now, everything was changing. For the first time in her life, she felt her body as an enemy and he was growing into a man she did not recognize – indeed _growing_.

Three months after the twins' birth, Rhaenys felt recovered enough to accept him back and while she was prepared for the pain of joining that was varyingly hard after each birth, she was not prepared for him to get tired so easily. Just a few months ago, that would not have been the case. While she was a little relieved because it was easier to cut it short when he desired it as well, that was the night of her first awareness that he was heading down a dangerous path. He had had some trouble with his knees for years but now it had become worse – as she had seen in this very bed! Back pains, shortness of breath, aching joints – all the things she had witnessed in men with too great a girth rushed through her mind as she lay cuddled against him, anger filling her as she felt him sleep so soundly. How could he be so calm? Did he not see what he was getting himself into?

The answer from Dorne had been no surprise for her and yet announcing Laena's betrothal panged her in a way that had to do with more than just letting her daughter go. This announcement all but proclaimed her failure for all the world to see. The flatterers around young Rhaenyra grew overnight – that same night that she and Viserys spent awake, holding each other, reliving their loss with new intensity.

Part of her feared that Laena might refuse to go. She was as unpredictable as Corlys and while a younger Rhaenys had appreciated it in her husband, the mother could not like such a thing about her daughter. But Laena never said a thing despite still following Daemon with longing eyes. Rhaenys' heart clenched when she sometimes caught Daemon looking back as he thought himself unobserved. There was something in his eyes, the way his face softened that made Rhaenys think that there might be some genuine affection there, instead of the lavish, courtly phrases he drowned Rhaenyra with. But she knew that should she ask, Laena would never tell her. Her daughter's pride knew no bounds, so Rhaenys could only wait anxiously whenever Vhagar and Caraxes happened to be missing at the same time, wait for them to come back.

She hoped that by paying court to Rhaenyra as obviously as he did, Daemon would feel obliged to stay away from Laena but to Rhaenys' amazement, Rhaenyra who had never taken well to being insulted showed no dissatisfaction with the situation. She still blushed under Rhaenys' probing and sometimes direct questions but her game became bolder with each match they played with the marble figures. Talks arose that Daemon wanted to take her as his second wife and Rhaenys barely managed to calm Viserys down enough to stop his impulse to have his brother flogged. Only her persuasion that it would hurt Rhaenyra's reputation by basically confirming the rumour made him come to his mind. Then, he sat down on Rhaenys' couch because the angry pacing had left him short of breath and she silently pushed a cup of tea towards him. Lately, her chambers had turned into a veritable master's study with all the potions and ointments meant to relieve one or another ache of him. She did not mind caring for him but she was angry because he was doing this to himself – and he knew she was right, else he would not have gone along with her discreet attempts to limit the number and size of his meals during the day. At the evening feast, though… She hated sitting there and watching the efforts of a day disappear into one plate after another.

* * *

Six months after Daemon's return he got himself exiled again which should have pleased Rhaenys but it was under such circumstances that it was impossible for her to feel joy. Her only comfort was that there were only _talks_ of him taking Rhaenyra's maidenhead. No one had seen, no one could say for sure. Even she. Viserys paced through her solar, his face so grim that even the girls who usually started smiling the moment they saw him looked confused, snuggling up to their wetnurses. Laena was sitting on her terrace, Rhaenys' servant-maids had told her, playing her harp as usual. Rhaenys was sitting near the fire, enjoying its warmth and recovering after the uncomfortable anticipation of Rhaenyra's angry protests that had not come at all. The girl was getting smarter by the day.

She nodded at the wetnurses to take the children out but Viserys stopped them. With the utmost effort, he forced the anger out of his face. When he reached out to take Aenor who seemed more impatient, Rhaenys already knew that the storm was over. In the split of a moment, she decided to use the restored peace, go and check out how the girls were doing. Laena was indeed playing the harp like she'd never stop; in Rhaenyra's chambers, a servant-maid dropped the vase she was holding upon seeing the Queen. Slightly surprised, Rhaenys went on her way, still not thinking anything… right until she saw them, in the far end of the gallery leading to Rhaenyra's solar, among other rooms.

The man drew a hand down the fall of silver curls. His face swam in shadows and Rhaenys could not recognize him but she'd know Rhaenyra everywhere. Still short, she looked positively tiny next to his big muscular form. He stroked her hair again and when he took his leave, Rhaenys recognized him. Harwin Strong!

She stood where she was, finally putting the pieces together, realizing the ruse of the girl who had encouraged Daemon almost openly, returned his supposed affection, used him to divert attention from the true scandal. What was she hoping to achieve? Rhaenys feared that she knew. Staring after Harwin long after he had disappeared, Rhaenyra finally turned to go to back inside but Rhaenys strode over.

The girl gasped. Rhaenys took her hand. "We need to talk, Rhaenyra. Now."

The fear in her stepdaugher's eyes was immediate – and disappeared just as immediately. "Must we really?" Rhaenyra asked, raising her chin.

Rhaenys remembered her own youth, herself – just as defiant and full of desires and passions. How she had hated being talked to by her father and septa, instead of talking _with_ them! Was she able to talk with Rhaenyra right now? Listen to her without trying to impart her own will blatantly?

"No," she sighed. "But tomorrow, we will. I insist."

Rhaenyra nodded. "It will be my pleasure," she lied obviously.

When Rhaenys returned to her chambers, the babes were getting tired. She took each of them in turn, moved the brightly painted wooden toys in and out of sight, talked to them but was ultimately relieved when Alysanne started yawning and she had a reason to send them back to the nursery. The day had been so long and full of new developments that she had no patience for anyone, even those she loved most.

"I'll talk to her tomorrow," Viserys suddenly said. "If she thinks she can turn this court into… into…" Words failed him and Rhaenys rose to go to the bedchamber, thinking that she'd better rise before Viserys. She needed to talk to Rhaenyra before he did but since she had last gotten with child, she had started oversleeping. If she tried to rise earlier, she became faint around noon. Never mind, she would do it.

In the morning, Rhaenyra met her in front of the board with their unfinished game from yesterday. Rhaenys looked at the figures, realizing that she had forgotten their last moves.

"I know everything," she said. "I want to hear it from you too."

"If I had not let Uncle Daemon court me and give fodder for gossip, you'd have never let me wed Harwin."

Rhaenys startled. She had not expected such quick, shameless reply. Her hand itched to slap the brazen girl but she stilled it. "You will not wed Harwin Strong," she said. "All you gained is earning yourself a reputation that will follow you to the end of your days as Queen."

Rhaenyra's jaw dropped. "Queen?" she croaked and Rhaenys stared, unable to believe that the girl had not done the simple counting.

"Of course you'll be Queen!" she snapped. "I am nine and thirty, Rhaenyra. Look at me! How many more babes do you really think I am going to have? And I'd rather not discuss the chance that I die soon and your father takes a new wife who will give him sons if you don't mind."

She was not about to discuss with Rhaenyra the most intimate side of her marriage, that Viserys' desire for her – and any other woman – decreased as his girth increased. Even if this had not been the case, she still felt too weak. There was no way she could carry a child, even if her age and the state of her marriage allowed it.

Rhaenyra seemed to shrink. "I thought this would make you and Father accept," she finally said. "And well, I thought if I were to become Queen, he'd be my husband and what ill could come of it? He's well-liked by all; his father has served admirably as Master of Laws…"

"By debasing yourself and making yourself ineligible for any worthy match?" Rhaenys asked. Anger had gone out of her and she now only felt fear for Rhaenyra. "Do you realize what you did, child? No man would pass over the chance to wed the future queen – and no man will ever forget that you went to his bed tainted."

"I am not," Rhaenyra declared, wrapping one of the luxurious shawls Daemon had given her like a shield. Her fingers were turning and twisting her rings as quickly and rhythmically as if she were knitting. "I – we haven't done anything."

"It doesn't matter," Rhaenys said. "In the eyes of the world, you did. Or do you think I was all the things the lords called me twenty years ago?"

She rose. "Now listen to me," she said. "That's how it will be. You will not be declared Princess of Dragonstone, not now. That would be a blow to my pride that your father will not allow. But you will join him in the Small Council with or without me. You will listen and learn until you're ready to sit in judgment. You will comport yourself in a way that will make them talk about your makings and not your sheets."

Rhaenyra gaped but Rhaenys went on without choosing her words. There was no room for double meanings and misunderstandings now. "This far, you've been more than discreet about Ser Harwin. I want you to keep it this way. You will not be wed to him so you can forget about resorting to another shenanigan of the kind right now. You can be either a queen or whore. Not the two together. It's unfair and it's sad but this is life, Rhaenyra. Take it from someone who knows. And over time, you will be made Princess of Dragonstone in preparation to ascend the Iron Throne one day – do not think it will be a comfortable place to occupy."

Rhaenyra tossed her head to one side. Gleaming purple eyes sought Rhaenys' and found them with stubbornness that was not so different from a young Rhaenys'. Her stepmother's words had went past her. "It won't happen like this," she said angrily.

But it did, at least in the beginning.

* * *

They had placed the children apart, for Alysanne was sick but when Rhaenys went to see them before she went to bed, the little girl was already livelier, the fever having broken. She was now wide awake after sleeping throughout the last three days. "Mama… Mama…" she said, licking her lips.

Rhaenys laughed and took her in her arms. "Very well, little one, tell me what do you want?"

The wetnurse hid her smile. Everyone in the nursery knew that both girls, now a year and a half old, constantly talked about their father, their mother coming to their mind mostly when they were ill. This was because they saw more of her, of course. Rhaenys visited them a few times a day while they only saw Viserys before the evening feast.

"Mama!" Alysanne repeated and fell asleep, just like this. A healthy, recovering sleep. Rhaenys returned to her chambers with the light step of one just released from prison. Viserys had not come yet, though, and she went to sleep before he showed up and did not stir when he slipped in bed.

The marked candle at her bedside showed it was still before midnight when he woke her up. "Rhaenys, I feel very ill."

She startled awake, sleep immediately flying away. He never woke her up. Never. "What's going on, Viserys?"

"My belly hurts. I think…"

Rhaenys rose, snapped the cover away, lifted his nightshirt cautiously and bit her lip. Despite his rapid gain of flesh that had let to stomach upsets ever so often, she had never seen his belly this bloated. She touched it. Too hot. "Does it hurt all over?" she asked.

"In my right side, mostly," he replied.

Her hand froze on his skin. She pressed a little, hoping to hear a murmur of displeasure but instead he winced, as if the pain was unbearable. "I'll send for the maesters," Rhaenys said with her usual calm voice, hoping that he would not hear the fear. Pain in the right side, that was how his father's agony had started. He had died within days. _No, this will not happen to him. He just had too much at the evening feast, that's all._ But when he threw up and it did not relieve him, her fear rose like fever, drowning her with all she knew about burst belly. He held out a hand and she sat on the edge of the bed stroking his forehead. He felt very hot to the touch which he was not usually, overindulgence or not. She wanted to say something, alleviate his apprehensions and her own but she was not sure she'd be able to control her voice.

The Grand Maester was no good either. Viserys gripped the cover and squeezed as the old man manipulated his belly in a much more forceful mimic of Rhaenys' gesture from before. But all he could tell them was that they had to wait and see it if was just a stomach malady… or a burst belly indeed, upon which they dismissed him. They could wait for the next development on their own. Rhaenys ordered some fennel tea and helped Viserys lean against a few pillows to drink it, thinking darkly that if things kept progressing, he'd soon have to start sleeping like this. Shortness of breath seemed to visit him more and more often at night. If he survived this long, of course. She wanted to tear her hair out.

"Will you warm a towel for me?" Viserys asked and Rhaenys shook her head.

"Not now." She was used to making warm compresses for him but while they might feel good on his belly, they might be the end of him if he turned out to have… what his father had had.

He nodded. "I see."

His self-possession was admirable. He laced his fingers through hers and Rhaenys leaned back against her own pillows to wait. _Please let it be gluttony. Please let him be fine,_ she prayed _. Let him live. Please, I beg you!_ But of course, she said none of this aloud.

It was almost dawn when the pain finally spread all over his belly, receded, became more bearable. Not a burst belly, after all. They did not know what it was but it was not this. They slid down in bed and fell into exhausted sleep and when they woke up some time after noon, they realized that he was locked in her arms as if she had been afraid to let go of him even in her sleep.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to everyone who commented! Thanks, Baelorfan, for the interesting discussion from the last time!

"Are you sure I am not hurting you?" Rhaenys asked for a third time in an hour.

"Yes," Viserys replied. "If it becomes uncomfortable, I will tell you."

In fact, Rhaenys knew it was uncomfortable. An unexpected and certainly unpredicted summer had turned the Red Keep into a burning hell, forcing people to splash their faces with water many times a day to ward the heat off. Years ago, Viserys had ordered a small fountain installed in her bedchamber, only to be open when she desired, this saving her from the worst of swelter but even so, it was hard to bear. More than a few times today, she had risen to take a towel to it, bathe both him and herself but the effect was wasted when she pressed close to him again. Additional heat and sweat did nothing to help him recover better but after the horror of last night the very thought to let go of him scared her. The pain had not disappeared completely but she figured that if he had managed to sleep entangled with her as they had apparently done at some point, she couldn't be doing him this much harm. And he looked as needy as her.

For a while, they stayed as they were. Finally, Rhaenys ordered a light meal that Viserys didn't touch. His belly had gone down a little but it was still unsettled enough to make him gag at the very idea. Rhaenys, on the other hand, had started regaining her appetite just weeks ago. She was more robust now, headaches had finally stopped plaguing her and her moon blood was no longer as abundant as the blood from a severed limb. Viserys who had never stopped trying to make her eat more smiled.

"I have to go to the chamber of the Council," she finally said, reluctantly.

"I know," he replied, looking unhappy at the perspective. "Well, it's well into the afternoon so I suppose it won't take much time there."

"I'll come back as soon as possible," she promised. "And I'll stay to sup with you."

"Go," he said. "Go so you can come back sooner."

Soon enough, Rhaenys was already striding out of Maegor's Holdfast, in a sunlight so bright that it looked heavenly after the fear overtaking last night.

The Red Keep was already aware of the King's indisposition. More than one pair of eyes looked at her fearfully. People were not stupid – they knew that should Viserys die, chaos would ensue. And many of them sincerely loved him.

In the chamber of the Small Council, everyone rose when they saw her. Rhaenys smiled at Rhaenyra and saw how tension left the girl's face. "I suppose you have heard that His Grace feels indisposed?" she asked and without waiting for an answer, said, "I am pleased to tell you that he's better already. In a few days, he'll be well enough to attend the meetings again. Meanwhile, I will stand for him."

No one as much as raised an eyebrow. _Quite different from six years ago_ , Rhaenys thought as she sat in Viserys' place as he had explicitly told her to. It was not the first time she did so but superstitious fear rose, as much as she hated to admit it. They still did not know what had happened to him. What if she drew the rage of the Seven? What if, upon her return, she found him in renewed pain and this time, it _was_ a burst belly? No. The Seven would not play such a cruel jest on them.

"What have you done this far?" she asked, going through a pile of documents with only a cursory look. "What remains to be done?"

"The Iron Bank," Rhaenyra replied. "A representative is waiting for your grace."

Rhaenys' mouth twitched. She heard the lack of capital letters quite clearly. She had little doubt that Rhaenyra was repeating the words just as she had heard them. Braavosi flourish was enough to leave even a girl who was still in thrall of her own budding femininity and the praise it received bored. But then, the meaning of the words sank in and she frowned. "The Iron Bank?" she said. "Why? We owe them nothing, or has someone taken a debt in the Crown's name without my knowledge?"

Her eyes traveled from one face to another. In her zeal to keep her grandmother's legacy alive, she had spent so many dragons on the Night Watch that Viserys had had to rein her in, let alone downsize the great tourney marking the last anniversary of their wedding, specifically to avoid taking a loan. Not that she had minded – or he, in fact. At the time, they had both been tired of life… this word again! Rhaenys still wept at night but she no longer wanted for the Stranger to come. Not for her and certainly not for Viserys!

"What does he want?" she asked.

"That's what we're trying to understand," the Hand of the King replied. "The Princess decided not to receive him before we know."

Rhaenys bit back her smile. _Never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to_ , this was a good guiding principle and she liked that Rhaenyra had taken it to heart. Always be prepared. _Still, it was not the time to delay now._ As she had lain half-awake, with slits of sunlight trying to make it through the drawn curtains and Viserys breathing heavily but steadily in her arms, she had made a decision that she had yet to announce to all involved. There was no time for her usual methods. "Invite him in, say, an hour," she said and leaned over the complaints of Reachmen and stormslanders. Of course, they were complaining of each other but at least this was the first such conflicts in months. Sometimes, these could be separated by just weeks.

More than a few times, Rhaenyra sought Rhaenys' eye and the Queen smiled; her mind eased for the moment, the girl returned to her papers. Satisfied, Rhaenys noted that she seemed to be much better at focusing longer than she had been just a few moon ago.

Exactly in an hour, the men of the Iron Bank, a Tamoso Ficini, was ushered in and bent the knee three times: once at the door, once when he reached the centre of the hall, and once at Rhaenys' very feet. His attire was simple but expensive, all shades of purple and heavy gold. Unassuming. But when she bade him rise, his eyes were anything but.

"We're happy to receive a man from the great city of Braavos here," Rhaenys said neutrally. "I regret to say that His Grace has forgotten to warm me about your visit. But I'll do my best to make your stay as comfortable as possible. Perhaps a feast tomorrow night?"

The Master of Coin wrote this down and Tamoso Ficini smiled. "It's a great honour to me to be so received by the most beautiful lady in Westeros," he said. "But I feel I need to explain. I am not here as a man of Braavos, Your Grace. I came on the behalf of the Iron Bank to settle an old debt."

Rhaenys froze. An old debt? Why hadn't she been made aware? She was sure that Viserys knew nothing as well – he was convinced they owed nothing to no one.

How was it possible? There was only one explanation. The Small Council had been borrowing heavily as her grandfather had been lying ill, unaware of who he was, unaware of the great realm he still formally ruled over. That was just what she should have expected of Ser Otto Hightower!

"I'm afraid I do not understand," she said.

"Years ago, Prince Daemon Targaryen took a loan from us, a significant loan."

Whisper went around the table. Rhaenys felt that she could breathe again. "Well, this is certainly between the Iron Bank and Prince Daemon, then," she said. "I don't see what it has to do with the Iron Throne."

"It's the pledge he offered is, Your Grace," the man explained which didn't make it clearer for Rhaenys at all.

"Has he promised you his dragon in case he was unable to meet the debt?" she asked, very matter-of-factly, and Rhaenyra's jaw dropped – along with some of the old men's. Men who should know Daemon better and be aware that with him, promises and fulfilling them were quite different things. In fact, she would not be surprised to hear that Daemon had pledged his lady wife as a warranty. "And now you cannot get hold of Caraxes, so you have come here to enlist our aid?"

Tamoso Ficini looked as if he had lost the plot. "We don't want a dragon," he said and then decided that he had grasped what was going on. "Her Grace jests," he said but when he looked around, he realized that no one else thought so. "He promised Dragonstone to the Iron Bank," he said and this time, Rhaenyra gasped loud. Rhaenys followed suit.

"What?" Rhaenyra screamed. "He promised… what?"

She rose as if she were going to advance on him. He didn't flinch.

"He guaranteed the loan pointing out his imminent investment as Prince of Dragonstone," he explained.

Finally, it all made sense. The only thing that surprised Rhaenys was, "Didn't he try to do it again?" she asked. "Later, when my sons died."

She thought her voice was even but it caught at the very end. Everyone tactfully pretended not to notice. "No, to the best of my knowledge," Ficini replied. Rhaenys waited to hear that the Iron Bank would not take this pledge if he did. But nothing more left the man's lips.

"Are they trying to blackmail us?" Rhaenyra asked incredulously, once the guest had been escorted out.

"Yes," Rhaenys replied.

"And what are we going to do about it?" the girl demanded.

"We won't give in," Rhaenys said, refusing to entertain the encroaching suspicion that Viserys might do just this. "We are not puppets dancing on their strings! And tomorrow, you will host a feast in his honour as planned," she added. The old pain had flared alive, adding to her concern, and she only wanted to stay in her chambers with her husband and be an attentive wife, a grieving mother. Sometimes, the part of queen was just too much.

When she returned to Maegor's Holdfast, Viserys was pale and sweating again. Her heart pounded as she felt his forehead. "Are you in pain?" she asked.

"A little," he said. "Nothing like last night. Come here."

Fear raced through her again but he did look better. She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his cheek. "You need to have a bite," she said finally. He had only had water and tea since last night and for someone used to much more, this was surely not doing him any favours, no matter how unsettled his belly still felt. "I'll have a meal with you," she added before he could protest.

It was clear that he was doing it for her but he did it anyway. When she finally removed the tray they had shared, he gave her a long look. "What happened at the meeting?" he asked.

She hesitated but eventually, she told him. He was well enough to hear it, although she could still see his heartache. "We aren't going to succumb to any blackmail," Viserys finally said. "If they want to support a bid of Daemon's, they're welcome. I will not pay the debts of every squanderer and adventurer just because there is a chance that someone powerful enough will be stupid enough to take a stand against the Iron Throne."

"I know," she murmured. At moments like this, she felt incredibly guilty, although he would never think of blaming her. Even the talks in the Red Keep were favourable to her despite the rising concerns of what would happen if she would not succeed in getting with child once again. After all, she had managed to give Viserys two healthy boys and the twin girls. This thrice blasted fever was no fault of hers and surely with her still so gaunt and pale, he would not risk her life to make her womb quicken again before it was too late? But it did not help.

"Come here," he said. "I… I've missed you."

Once, such an admission would have been very hard for him to make. Weaknesses that they had known lived in each other had joined weaknesses that had been revealed in their shared life, sometimes as they lay on one pillow. Rhaenys went to the adjacent chamber to have the maids help with her gown and came back to lay her head on his arm. Silent tears flowed down her cheeks and he wiped them, although in the darkness, he should not have known they were there at all.

"You scared me," Rhaenys finally said, the anger she would have expected if her prior experience with his excesses was anything to go by somehow not rising.

"I'm sorry."

She wanted to light the candle and see his face as she spoke but that would mean disturbing him and he seemed to have settled. His breath stirred her hair and she felt terribly weary as she said, "Viserys, you can't go in like this. A few times last night, I thought…" She paused because she could no longer trust her voice. And then, something shook her, went down her body like a lightning. Pride and injury, and the injustice of all of it...

She had forgotten what being Rhaenys felt like but here it was, finally. She was Prince Aemon's daughter, the first woman who everyone had looked at as the future ruler over a realm spanning over a continent… She had tolerated her lord husband's lapses far too long.

"Last night, I thought you may die," she said and this time, her voice did not fail her. "I thought you might die, Viserys, and for no better reason than your sudden inability to say no to those delicious meals we've been served in dozens since we were born."

The anger bubbling in her made her see red in the dark bedchamber even as she pressed closer against him because speaking her fears out made her relive them and roused the same reaction that had made her cling to him in her sleep. "You know very well that your health troubles are all connected to them. I don't mind tending you, Viserys, truly I don't. But I think it's very unfair, what you're doing to me. You offered me to be Queen, not Queen Dowager in a few years!"

His shoulders stiffened. Was he ashamed? He should be! "Grandfather and your father cheated me out of my birthright. You fought me over it years later. Hear me out, Viserys, because I am not going to say it twice: I will not be cheated out of a husband, do you hear me? And one ailing so quickly because of too many meals doesn't qualify! I am not going to tolerate anything like last night ever again. When you become ill, I want to know what ails you – without these meals getting in the way!"

He tried to say something but Rhaenys did not give him a chance. The pent up frustration, the fury she had been holding in all had lashed out and the ugliness of it splashed both of them. "I am sorry I pushed you away when… when they died. I know I left you alone in the horror of losses new and old. I was just so angry that you didn't let me see them one last time, before they were gone or after."

At this, her anger just flickered and died. Was this the reason she had been so patient when she did not have it in her? Because she had refused him forgiveness for the wrong he had not committed and the comfort of her nearness even after she had seen that he had started seeking it in food?

"I was afraid that you'd die, Viserys," she said again after a while. "And you still may, one day. Your belly pains are getting worse. I won't even talk about your back, your knees, or this constant fatigue plaguing you. I won't have it. You will get better because else…" She wondered what would happen else. She could always stop tending him, of course, leave it to the servants. Even as she thought it, she knew she wouldn't. "Do it for me," she finally said. "Do it for me and the girls. Do it for Rhaenyra who really deserves better than fighting for the throne that belongs to her now when she has so few chances to win it. And Westeros deserves better than being left on Daemon's whims!"

He was silent. Silent and mortified. Rhaenys reached out to touch his face in the darkness. "I want you to be fine," she finally said. "I know I sound cruel but I'm truly terrified that I might become a widow again well before your time."

Still, he said nothing but he touched the hand touching his face. She sighed, feeling so very tired all of a sudden. He drew a hand down her back. "I'll try," he finally said and her tears flowed anew.

* * *

Two more days passed before he felt strong enough to attend the Small Council – and even then, he was so tired that he went to sleep as he sat in his solar and Rhaenys chose not to wake him for the evening feast. It would do him no good anyway. But the next day, the eyes that greeted them as they left Maegor's Holdfast told them that the rumours had abounded anew.

"I won't be surprised if they expected to find me dead in a few days or so," Viserys told her as they walked, and she glanced at him.

"A few days? Why so long?"

"Because I died yesterday and you locked me in my bedchamber for the time being until you can put your plans in actions," he replied and her mouth twitched before she gave him a warning look.

"I was being serious," she said.

"I know," he replied. "So was I."

This time, it was a complaint from the West that came to be heard out first. The ironmen had resorted to their old ways again. "They will never learn!" Rhaenyra said angrily. "It's high time for the Greyjoys to lose their positions – and their heads as well!"

"And who are you going to put in their place?" Viserys asked. "Someone peace-loving and true to their oaths, I mean."

Thus chastised, Rhaenyra looked down. Viserys wasn't surprised by this lapse in his daughter's judgment but to Rhaenys, this was a reminder of just how inexperienced Rhaenyra truly was. She had progressed greatly but she was still a girl. If Viserys died tomorrow, she would be their best chance, with all her lapses. A scary thought.

Tamoso Ficini arrived again, clearly having heard of the King's recovery, and before letting him in, Viserys glanced at Rhaenys. "Do you want to leave?" he asked so softly that she was the only one who heard. "I have to receive him but there is no reason for you to suffer this as well. I'll claim that you're busy elsewhere."

She looked back at him, grateful but without smiling. "I'll stay," she said even as her heart beat rapidly which was irrational anyway. It was not _her_ dead children whose death Daemon had tried to benefit from eight years ago. She still did not know if he had tried it later.

The servant of the Iron Bank entered without pomp, although his compliments to Rhaenys were just as lavish as before. But his mind was also as sharp as before, unfortunately. He was not giving anything away.

"Very well," Viserys said, quickly getting tired with his weaseling. "I'll make it clear: my brother will never be proclaimed Prince of Dragonstone. It will never be his to give. As it was not when the Iron Bank made the mistake of accepting it as a warranty. Because of this, I don't feel duty-bound to repay any remnants of his debts. You can say it to your masters."

"I will," the man replied with a bow but his sneaking look at Rhaenyra made both Viserys and Rhaenys uncomfortable.

"He has come to assess her, hasn't he?" Rhaenys asked when they were left alone. "Make his mind who the Iron Bank should stake upon."

"I'm afraid that's it," Viserys said. "And if her outburst that you told me about is any indication, his mind could be divided."

"As if Daemon is more controlled!" Rhaenys spat as if it were Viserys claiming it. But she knew it was the truth. What was considered acceptable in a man was not so for a woman.

Memories of twenty years ago flooded her mind, memories of every little fit of bad temper, every smile not given taken as proof of female unreliability. She had done her best to shape Rhaenyra into a good ruler, would keep doing so – and it would all be in vein, as it had been for her. Even if Rhaenyra managed to comport herself beyond reproach all the time, which Rhaenys demanded but did not really expect because it was beyond anyone's limits, it would still not matter. The only thing that could solidify her stepdaughter's position was to be in power. Not as advisor. Not close to power. To be in power. She said so to Viserys who nodded. "I've thought about this," he said. "But do you think we can actually do it? I have a Hand and I cannot dismiss him on a whim. And she cannot be queen as long as I am king."

Something flashed behind Rhaenys' eye, the mere seed of an idea but it was there. She could think about the details later. "Can't she?" she asked slowly.

* * *

More than twenty years ago, Rhaenys had left Dragonstone without turning to look back from Meleys' back, riding over the royal fleet of ships that had lowered their flags in respect to her one last time. Now she returned on such a ship flying the three-headed dragon proudly, with Meleys throwing a huge shadow over the sea, stopping and then resuming her flight. Even she was confused. Did she remember that this had once been her home? Did she feel something drawing her to the Dragonmount as Rhaenys refused to feel drawn to the castle?

"Are you well?" Viserys asked softly coming behind her.

She glanced at him. "I am," she said, not quite truthfully, but he already looked better than he had at King's Landing and it was almost not a lie.

"I'll keep an eye on the girl," her uncle had said when he had come from Storm's End to take his place as the King's own voice as Viserys and Rhaenys left for Dragonstone. "And you keep an eye on him."

"I will," she had agreed and he had smiled as he always did when he saw that she was more content than she had expected in the sad morning of her wedding.

Now, she wondered again if she was not making a mistake. Perhaps they could have chosen a better time to start affirming Rhaenyra in power. Dealing with the ironmen could not be easy, even with Lord Boremund there to sanction her decisions… or not. Laena would leave for Dorne in three months and the two months they would spend here meant two months less with her. And Viserys could still renege on his promise, making her attempts to drag him away from the enticements of the feasts in King's Landing a fool's errand.

Anyway, it was too late for regrets now. In the falling dusk, Rhaenys stared ahead at the lighthouse that had been her mother's project, at the bright flame rising to light and when they headed for the boat that would take them over the dangerous dragonglass flooring the shoals, she did not think again of her onetime vow never to set foot on Dragonstone again.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented!

Rhaenys had been prepared to spend her first few days at Dragonstone alone – the swell of the sea adding to the faint but still persisting stomach uneasiness had given Viserys his first seasickness ever and although it had only lasted a day or so, it had added to his general exhaustion. She had expected of him to sleep most of the time in the aftermath of their arrival. What she had not expected was how weary she herself would be, as if the true extent of her fatigue was letting itself be known now when nothing was expected of her. For two days, they slept, only waking up to relieve themselves, sit on the couch for an hour or two to soothe their stiffened backs and take the light meals Rhaenys ordered. Making him eat even those was proving as hard as making him stay clear from the rich plates they were served in King's Landing but when the maester asked if they needed his services, she and Viserys exchanged a look and declined. Rest was all they needed, for now. Rhaenys was surprised how easy it was proving to forget about everything outside this island.

The first day she left her chambers, she took Meleys for a ride. "Be careful," Viserys warned, looking at the dark clouds drifting towards Dragonstone deceivingly slow. "I don't want you to get caught into a storm."

Rhaenys laughed. "When have I ever?" she asked but when she went to prepare Meleys, the she-dragon looked eager, her coppery horns twitching as only the anticipation of a battle could make them, or so Rhaenys' father had claimed. In the absence of a dragon foe, weather would do.

"Are you feeling at home as I do?" Rhaenys asked as they rose to the sky, heading to make a circle around the Dragonmount first of all. Beneath, in the fishing village, people started shouting and pointing at the sky; startled, Rhaenys realized just for how long there had not been a dragonrider at Dragonstone. More than ten years, since Uncle Baelon's death. The first circle was slow, Meleys drawing strength from the fire breath of the volcano, and then the second and third ones were joyful claiming, wild triumph before Meleys took higher to the sky, further away from the castle, straight towards at the sea shuddering with the promise of storm. Rhaenys drew the salty air in. She had never stopped missing the air of sea while riding and it was the air of this sea that she missed. Even the one at Driftmark had not been the same.

"I am Rhaenys Targaryen," she shouted at the sky, as joyful as a child once again. "And I am home!"

But the coming storm cut her flight short. It looked that in her years away, she had lost her ability to judge accurately the development of the ever-present storms. When she dismounted, she was drenched to the bone and the moment she lost Meleys' warmth, she started shaking.

"I was afraid for you, Your Grace," the old keeper at the door of the dragon stables told her. "I could see how eager you were for a good flight and I was scared that it would cloud your judgment and you might get lost in the sky."

Rhaenys swallowed. Like most of the older men and women here, he could not stop watching her, almost teary-eyed. "Oh, Kaith," she replied softly. "Do you not know me? Have I ever gotten lost?"

Despire her sodden clothing and hair, there was one more place that she wanted to visit before she went back inside. She walked briskly, mindless of the heavy rain. After all, she could hardly get any more wetter.

The wooden statues of the sept welcomed her like old friends. She bowed her head before that of the Maiden, as she had done in the day of her leaving. An old woman that, strangely, Rhaenys had never seen came close and offered a candle to light. "Do you maintain the sept?" Rhaenys asked.

The woman laughed, as if she had heard something very funny. "No, my lady. They would not let me touch the statues. But I keep the floor clean and the candles lit, here and down, in the crypt. Did you know that there is a crypt down there?" she asked.

"Yes," Rhaenys replied.

The woman nodded. "There is, although I can't see the sense of it. There is only ashes in the urns, after all. That's how the Targaryens bury their dead, you know. Save for the old lady."

"Oh?" Rhaenys asked, recognizing the woman's desire to talk. "There is an old lady here?"

"Well, she wasn't old when she died," the servant acknowledged. "Not nearly as old as I!" she added. "But she died long ago. She was a storm lady, they say, the Princess of Dragonstone and mother to our queen. People here tell of how she had her lord husband built the lighthouse, as big as the ones in the stormslands, and how she saved many lives this way. To this day, at her grave downstairs, there is always a candle lit, day and night. That was her husband's order. Till the end of time. And men and women here still follow the order of their dead lord…"

Shock went down Rhaenys like a lightning. Somehow, she had never thought that after her father's death, after her own leaving, the respect to her lady mother would continue. Had it ever stopped?

She asked Viserys this question late at night as they prepared for bed. Rhaenys herself had placed the warming pan in their bed and heated the bricks for their feet as Viserys had stirred the fire to start smouldering in a few hours. It felt a little strange to look after themselves again but it was not unpleasant. When Viserys lay down next to her, she felt that his limbs had regained a little of the warmth that she had missed.

"Stop lighting the candle for your mother?" he asked, surprised. "Never, as far as I know. Why would it stop?"

She looked down. "I – I don't know."

"I think you do," he said and sighed, drawing her close. "We'll never be free of it, won't we? Especially here, at Dragonstone."

She was silent, wondering if he was right. At King's Landing, with everyone bowing to her, her receiving envoys of her own, and the now almost obligatory "In the presence of Queen Rhaenys" written in Viserys' own hand next to his signature in all documents she saw being signed, it had been easy to leave the past behind. But here where the past was all around them? Did she want the past? Or did she want him?

Something flashed in her memory, something old and forgotten. The Queen's Garden. Daemons' face as he said…

"Did you try to stop your father from sending me away from Dragonstone?" she asked and felt how he stiffened.

"What?" he asked. "Where did this come from? Rhaenys, I am not following you."

"Daemon. He told me once that you argued with your father, tried to prevent him from driving me away."

The arm under her head became even more rigid. "Must we go back to this?" he asked tiredly. "I know my father did not treat you well. But he was trying to do what was best for you. He thought that a prolonged staying here knowing that you did not belong anymore would only harm you further. He was wrong, of course."

Rhaenys tried to hide her impatience. "I don't care what he thought!" she said. "I want to know if you tried to stop him."

"What does it matter?" He clearly kept misunderstanding. "It didn't work."

It mattered but not the way he thought. "It wouldn't have mattered if you had not tried but it does matter a lot that you did try."

She had lost him completely, now. _You_ , she thought. _It's you that I want._ He did not make her heart beat faster, not as she had used to feel with Corlys, but somehow, he had become part of her, part of her soul. Losing him would be like losing an arm… and not only losing him to death.

"I'm tired," she said. "Let's go to sleep."

He was unwilling to delve further into matters that still shamed him, so he was glad to take his arm back and turn his back to her. Rhaenys turned to the other side, still close to him for warmth and because she liked it but she no longer felt the irrational fear of letting him go by letting go of him.

The next day, the maester of Dragonstone was finally admitted in their chambers. Rhaenys looked at him with interest and a little fear. She had heard that he was a good advisor, essential in implementing Septon Barth's innovation that she had rediscovered in many regions before he was finally sent here. He inspired trust, with his immaculate robes and ascetic face. A great mind, no doubt, but was he a good healer? That was what they needed.

"Does he eat enough?" she asked bluntly when she summoned the man to her chambers after he had given his advice for lots of rest, going out to catch some fresh air, nourishing food, and… a bare bed. "He has gained lots of flesh lately, lost some of it in the last month too abruptly and while I feared his indulgence at the table contributed to his complaints, I am now worried that after the night of those first pains and our journey here, he doesn't eat nearly enough for a man of his size to stay healthy."

The old maester was jotting something on a parchment so furiously that drops of ink were flying in all directions, reaching as far as Rhaenys' gown. "Let him rest, Your Grace," he said. "Such a combination of factors is harsh even for those in the flower of their youth. As long as he doesn't refuse food, have him have a bite and leave him at it."

Rhaenys nodded, feeling immense relief. Gerardys went on, "And it's going to help his treatment as well. I will prepare potions and ointments for his knees and back and recommend teas to ease his breathing but it will be much easier without indulgence at the table, as you say. Fortunately, you say he's grown stout only lately?"

"Yes," Rhaenys said, not understanding why it mattered.

"Then, it hasn't had the time to do irreparable damage to his lungs or joints. They might be straining under this new burden but should it decrease, they will not be destroyed."

Not irreparable! Rhaenys' heart soared. "But what should he do in the meantime?" she asked. The promise of these troubles resolving themselves was good but it would not help Viserys _now_.

The maester stopped scribbling and looked at her, puzzled, remembering that he had already said this once to both her and the King. "Have His Grace walk along the shore," he said. "Salty air is good for him. He should start and end every day with some tarragon tea to help his lungs and stomach. Ointments for his knees, a hard flat bed to take the strain off his back…"

All those were things that could be easily achieved, save for the walk maybe. But once Rhaenys managed to drag Viserys out of the castle, it was not this hard. He might dislike Dragonstone from his time here twenty years ago but he had been happy for Rhaenys to show him the caves, the volcano, the hidden coves even earlier. He was happy to be shown around now as well. They filled their days with walks, swimming, lazy reclining in front of the fire and he was better for it. And in the evening, there was nothing that deserved to be called feast. Viserys' need of fennel tea decreased almost daily.

It was so easy to slip into a routine. Sometimes, her life at King's Landing looked like years ago. The guilt for letting other people do the last preparations for Laena's leaving and other people to bring up Aenor and Alysanne out of her own household visited sometimes but was shortly lived. Right now, Viserys was what mattered.

Her uncle wrote once a week and Rhaenys was pleased to know that left to her own devices, Rhaenyra had hardened the tone to the Iron Bank even more, hinting of the possibility of paying the debts of the most important debtors in the Seven Kingdoms right now, this severing the interest the Iron Bank relied to. True, Rhaenys' first thought was the concern that Ficino might take Rhaenyra seriously and invite her to do so but fortunately, her gambit proved a winning one: any attempts to try and wrestle a settlement from the Iron Throne had faded. The trouble, it seemed, was that Rhaenys had forgotten what it felt like to be young and daring.

"Aren't you going to Driftmark?" Viserys asked one morning as they read Boremund's last letter. "To visit Laenor?"

"He'll visit us here," Rhaenys replied. She didn't want to leave Viserys alone. Without her presence, he could easily slip into his lazy ways and once he had found his way back to inactivity and rich tables, it might prove more difficult to steer him off them. He had been regaining his health steadily – she didn't want to lose the progress. And she didn't want him to go to Driftmark where celebrations would be demanded and seasickness might visit upon him on the way, no matter how briefly. "Are we going to the shore now?"

He rose readily.

Her son arrived three days later, his charm as easy as ever and Seasmoke almost as enthused to see Dragonstone as Meleys. "I think there is something in this island that attracts them," Laenor said with the greatest of seriousness. "They aren't supposed to know it and the sorcery of Valyria is supposedly dead. Why do they keep returning, then?"

Rhaenys had given the matter some thought but only a very passing one. She waved it away. "What does it matter?"

Sometimes, Laenor's focus on small things still irritated her. But Viserys agreed with him. "I think we know too little of them," he said. "Soon, it will be the maesters who will know more."

Rhaenys waved this off and gave her son a harsh look. "Lord Boremund says there has been some shocking lack of discretion on your part," she said and this time, she did not mean his infatuation with young men his own age that were well-known amidst certain circles. "And I mean both you and Laena. How did you become involved? I thought it was agreed that the dismal loan Daemon took was to remain a secret."

Laenor shrugged and turned to look at the dragon towers that could be seen from the window. "I suppose someone forgot."

"Really?" Viserys asked. "I think I can even point out the name of this someone. Rhaenyra has allowed her temper to get the better of her again."

Now, Laenor spun around and gave them both a long look. "I think it's the two of you who have allowed your pride to get the better of you," he said. "Why should Daemon's folly be hidden from the world? Are you so desperate to preserve his good name?"

They didn't talk about Daemon and the wrong judgment each believed the other exercised. But Rhaenys noticed that Viserys looked content. Happier. She was happy as well. She had not spent this much time with Laenor for years, the last time being the day before he left for Dragonstone the day he came of age. Part of the dark haze that coloured everything in her life ever so slightly lifted. _We have not lost it all,_ she thought. _I love them still but they're dead and nothing is going to bring them back._ _And we have the living ones._ She reached for Viserys' hand without looking and he squeezed it.

They had not been together for almost three months so Rhaenys had no true basis to judge but when this night he reached for her, she thought their joining was easier and longer than it had been in the whole past year. Or perhaps it was just her hope for recovery and renewal.

* * *

The true extent of Viserys' recovery became clear to her only when they returned to King's Landing. She had enjoyed watch him become stronger and less fatigued but she only realized how much better he was when she saw people's looks. Unlike their arrival at Dragonstone when they had went to their chamber to sleep for days, here they only ordered a bath for each before Viserys strode for the hall of the Small Council and Rhaenys went to seek her daughter. Lately, Laena had started spending all her time flying, Rhaenys had been told. Had Meleys been here, she might have taken to the sky and looked for her daughter at Laena's favourite haunting places but this time, Meleys had decided that flying over the much slower ships was not to her liking and had gone ofd somewhere. She would come back but when – Rhaenys did not know.

She saw Vhagar in the sky as she crossed the drawbridge. From this far, Laena was invisible and Rhaenys went to wait for her in her own chambers, near the White Sword Tower, where a chaos of hurried voices, thumping of heavy objects being moved, and young women placing herbs in traveling chests to preserve the gowns inside stopped dead when everyone saw the Queen. Rhaenys looked around at her daughter's chambers, all in various degrees of being stripped from their furniture, and her heart felt heavy in her chest.

Laena found her in the bedchamber, the only room that was still untouched. Rhaenys held her tight, not minding the smell of sweat and the lingering heat, too great to be just Laena's own.

"You look well, Lady Mother," Laena finally said, drawing back. "I can see the reprieve did much good for you. I hope it was half as good for the King. Won't you take a seat?"

Vaguely, Rhaenys recognized that they had suddenly changed parts. It was as if Rhaenys was now the child and Laena, the parent. In her absence, her daughter had grown gaunter but even more beautiful, her eyes deeper and more alive, with this dark flame lighting them from the inside. At her bedside, various books and report about Dorne were scattered.

"You've been flying too much," Rhaenys said. "Never find the time to eat, do you? I'll take care of this now."

Laena gave her a vacant look before collecting herself. "I want to take as much time with Vhagar as I can," she said. "I only have a month."

"What?" Rhaenys asked because even before she took Laena's words in, she knew that something terrible was taking place.

"I cannot take her with me," Laena said.

"Why?"

"You must understand, Lady Mother!" Laena's voice rose to a feverish pitch. "I tried to find a way but the more I got to know the Dornish men and women sent to prepare me, the more I read about Dorne, the more I realized that a dragon will not be tolerated in Dorne. The Prince and his bannermen might welcome one but it's the smallfolk that I fear. They… they aren't like the smallfolk everywhere else. _They will not tolerate a dragon_ , not after all that has taken place. Just a few years ago, they saw Caraxes at the Stepstones… I will not bear to see Vhagar killed with an iron bolt of a scorpion or agonizing for days… Surely you understand?"

Pride and grief overwhelmed Rhaenys at the same time and as she clutched her wild, imperious, wise, hurting daughter to her, she wept like she had not wept since the day her sons her died.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented!

Laena left King's Landing when the apricot trees were hanging low against the ground, heavy with fruit, the sun turned the vast expanse of the sea a brilliant blue, and warmth was so palpable that one breathed it in with each breath they took. She was a beautiful bride, everyone said so, but Rhaenys saw none of the beauty – she only saw the gaunt face, the incised cheekbones, and the hair that had had to be brushed out a hundred times to be restored to its usual shine. But the smile on the lips, white with biting, was unwavering even when Vhagar gave a roar that made people recoil and look nervously at the sky. Even Rhaenys looked up to make sure that the dragon had not escaped her bonds far away in the Dragonpit.

"I will come visit you soon," Rhaenys promised at the gates. Laena had insisted that the court did not come to see her off and now her mother drank her in.

"Do so."

Was it Rhaenys' overactive imagination, or had her daughter's voice actually shook, ever so slightly? She could not say.

For three days, she did not leave her chambers. She did not even leave her bed. Her eyes were turned inwardly, at the time of Laena's first days, through the shocked silence that Corlys' death had led to. Had her father's death made Laena this peculiar and somewhat reticent, only interested in her dragon? No. Rhaenys would have been the same at Laena's age, had she not been in training to be Queen one day. She was happy and proud that her daughter had ascended to such an enviable positions but had Laena wed a more minor lord, contacts and meetings would have been easier. Rhaenys fully intended to visit her but she knew that realistically, it could hardly take place before the birth of Laena's first child.

Vhagar would not stop roaring. Rhaenys was getting as used to it as she was to the music at the evening feast.

In the third day, Viserys entered her bedchamber at the time she usually woke up. Until now, he had been kind and gentle, even more than usual, enduring the weeping that woke him up at night with grace and, to her great relief, not trying to fight it with reason. But now, there was nothing kind about him. He didn't even sit on the edge of the bed. "Rise and come to the Council," he said. "We need you."

"I am coming," Rhaenys replied without thinking and then, it was too late to change her mind as Viserys immediately called for a bath, leaving her with no choice but return to her life."

A few days later, they got a refugee from Braavos. The son of the late Sealord, a handsome youth trailed by a thick line of debtors and enemies. While Rhaenys could not see how anyone could reasonably side with him in the fight for his late father's office if merits were something to go by, she knew that reasons had nothing to do with merits. "We will let him stay at court," Viserys said. "Under close watch, of course. Our friends in Braavos can rest assured that he will not make any trouble."

But it soon became clear that he had spoken in haste. Because just two days later, the boy paid his first call to Rhaenyra, presenting her with gems and a barrage of compliments. And while it was nothing to worry about by itself, it could be twisted into a tale that Rhaenyra would not recognize. To make matters worse, Rhaenys happened to personally overhear a quarrel between her stepdaughter and Harwin Strong. "Thank you so very much," he was telling her. "It was a great pleasure listening to all the things you said."

Rhaenyra stared at him, torn between surprise and amusement. "Well, what should I have done? Shut the door in his face when my lord father had already accepted him as our guest?"

"Why not?"

The girl still seemed to accept this as a jest but Rhaenys knew better. Strong's voice showed her that he was dead serious about this. Then, they lowered their voices so she could only hear murmur but there was no doubt that there was a heated argument in the solar, behind the terrace door. She walked away, thinking that Rhaenyra should be wed very soon and berating herself for her complacency. Since the girl had not given any reason for gossip for more than a year, Rhaenys had accepted that Rhaenyra had forgotten all about Ser Harwin. Fool, fool, fool! It was now clear that she had not.

"What's wrong?" Viserys asked as he returned Aenor to her nursemaid and looked around for her egg. No doubt the little girl would start looking for it soon and it would be better if they could give it to her as she slept because else, she'd wake the entire Red Keep up.

"It's nothing," Rhaenys replied, also looking for the egg. "I am tired, that's all."

Viserys should not know about Harwin Strong because then, he'd just start scolding Rhaenyra and ordering her to stop it which would not help. He had never been in love when this young. Rhaenys had and she had tried to prevent Rhaenyra from going down this dangerous path. It had not worked. She did not want to shame her stepdaughter or make her life harder. She just wanted to help her.

She turned to open the window and a sudden laugh broke from her lips, making both Viserys and Aenor's nursemaid to turn and look at her. Alysanne had dragged the cloth off the table, folded it in two and wrapped it around her neck, undoubtedly imitating the way Rhaenys wore her shawls. She had even tried to tie it at the shoulder, the result being a big ball over there. The girl paraded proudly before her mother and then went off to let her father see her as well. Rhaenys startled a little realizing how fast Alysanne could have strangled herself, but no, her nursemaid never let her out of sight, ready to intervene the moment things started getting dangerous.

"Don't let her do it anymore," Rhaenys ordered anyway. How did smallfolk manage to steer their children to maturity without someone watching them day and night? Sadness clung to her at the thought that these children would grow up and leave one day as well.

Like every night since Laena's departure, she snuggled up against Viserys as soon as they went to bed, his breath tickling her neck. It was so peaceful. Only after he slept did she allow tears to fall but the fact that she could order them go dry at all was a sign that she was getting better. And this night, she slept as well, even though she startled and wept a few times, trying to be as quiet as possible.

It was her third waking up when she heard the noise. The shouts. The roar, so unexpected at this time of night. Vhagar, she thought. She's getting worse with Laena not going to her. But as lay in bed, trying to ignore it, the roar grew louder and more terrible. Someone yelled something, someone in the Red Keep. Viserys stirred and opened his eyes, expecting to see his wife crying and telling him to go back to sleep.

"I'll go and see what's going on," Rhaenys said, rising and reaching for a robe as he was trying to wake up fully.

Ser Steffon was standing guard at the door of her bedchamber but he also looked disturbed. "Stay with Viserys," she ordered, walking down the hall quickly, Ser Martyn in her wake.

She had not reached the end of the drawbridge when she saw the fire that had bloomed in the night sky. A tongue of flame… She mended her pace and when the gate opened, releasing her from the limited view of the walls of Maegor's Holdfast, she gasped, seeing the glowing ball against the sky. Unmoving ball. She ran for the nearest wall and started climbing up, already knowing what she would see and still she swayed when she saw it. The dark sheen of clouds, the red.

"What?" Ser Steffon asked and she knew without looking back that Viserys had reached her.

"Look!" her husband yelled. "There! The black smoke, the red glow! By the Seven, Steffon, it's a fire! Rhaenys' Hill is burning!"

"Not just this," Rhaenys said in a hollow voice. "Look over there! The moving fire! Oh Viserys, Vhagar has snapped her bonds! She's setting King's Landing on fire!"

He squinted. Rhaenys grabbed his hand, turned him towards the flying fire. In the scarlet, bright and fierce, she could make out a giant wing.

"Oh no!" Viserys breathed. As they watched, the dragon dove down and her fire breath caught on the white buildings of a square. Flames rose high and immediate.

Viserys and Rhaenys watched, petrified, as the Kingsguard started cursing. The fire could take the entire capital.

"We must set the other dragons on her!" Ser Martyn cried.

"What? Release more dragons?" the Lord Commander snapped. "Doesn't one suffice?"

"Yes!" Rhaenys clung to this idea as around them, the Red Keep was coming awake with lights and screams. "The dragons! We must chain her back!"

"No!" Viserys said sharply and she spun around.

"No? Do you want to let her loose? Like Balerion at Harrenhall?"

"I don't want to let her loose on _you_!" he shouted back. "She's bigger than any of yours!"

"But there are three of ours and she's all alone. I am sure Meleys could take her, even alone," Rhaenys said with certainty that she did not feel. Before her eyes, the true impact of a dragon's presence burned bright in new houses and dried fountains. They had to stop her.

Later, when she thought about it, she would even find in her heart some pity for Viserys who had been forced to watch helplessly as those he loved most in the world entered a battle that could easily mean their deaths. But now, she ran back to her chambers to make herself ready. As she hurried for the stables, she was not surprised to see Rhaenyra and Laenor also running in this direction. The young man Laenor favoured could only stare, his eyes huge, horror on his face.

"Do what you can to spare her life," Rhaenys only said as the grooms brought their horses out so they could ride for the Dragonpit. "But if she poses a real danger for yours, if you think this for a moment, then kill her. She isn't worth this much."

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for each and every comment, you were a great help at nudging me forward.

As soon as she reached the Dragonpit – no, as soon as she _saw_ the Dragonpit , - Rhaenys knew what hell looked like.

All throughout the frantic ride, she had been thinking of Vhagar but now she was faced with the realization that the oldest surviving dragon had not escaped her bonds without anyone's notice. She was greeted by roars that made her press her palms against her ears in a vain attempt to protect her hearing; the horse whinnied in panic and started drawing back and rearing, so Rhaenys clung to his mane, trying not to fall. No shouts or nudging soon turned to kicks could influence the panicked animal; horror had erased all training and he was now a mass of pure instincts, a mass of instincts that could kill her before Vhagar had the chance. Rhaenys tried to free her feet from the stirrups but with the horse in this dance of dread, it seemed almost impossible. Finally, she jumped on the ground and saw, irritated, that Laenor and Rhaenyra, also afoot now, waited for her commands. Couldn't they take _some_ initiative?

With relief, she saw that none of the other dragons had escaped, although many of them were straining against their bonds. She saw five huge bodies in the yard, roaring and breathing fire, as terrified men were trying to douse it with the huge buckets of water they kept near for such occasions. Not that such a thing had ever taken place; taking the scene in, Rhaenys realized that they should have kept every dragon without a rider at Dragonstone where they couldn't inflict such harm. That was their grandfather's way and they had accepted it without thinking but dragons were a weapon that could be turned against its owners as easily as it was for them to use it; in the light Vhagar breathed out as she circled around King's Landing and destroyed it liberally, Rhaenys could make out the position of the dragon closest to her. Soon, he'd be free. She looked for Meleys, found her, willed her to come near, and failed.

"We'll have to go there and take them," she said levelly. "Looks like the heat is such that the men cannot reach further to dose the fire…"

Laenor shove his cloak in the nearest bucket, threw it over his head as dripping as it was and entered the suffocating smoke and flaming hell, dodging an enormous claw by a meter. Rhaenys followed his lead because it was easier to do something, rather than wait to be sure that he had reached Seasmoke _and_ put him under control.

She had been in a similar danger only once – decades ago, when she had first claimed Meleys, stepping towards her without knowing if the big dragon would accept or kill her. But then, it had been exciting. It had been a game, a little, at least.

What was happening now was no game at all. _We should have shortened and strengthen Vhagar's bonds,_ she thought despairingly as she jumped from the way of a storming claw, right into one of a path of flame. Now, she felt as helpless as those her family had once subjected with the power of beasts greater than the ones she now prayed would not notice her…

Weaving her way took eternity. When she reached Meleys, she already knew that her glorious silver hair would have to be cut short – she would not be surprised if there were spots of burned right through it, dragon breath reaching her before she could lower the wet cloak which was now completely dry against it…

"Meleys!" she yelled, suddenly realizing that the mouth opened to bathe her in flames was that of her own she-dragon. "Meleys!" she repeated even as she saw the flames ready to escape because somehow, somehow she knew that should she remove herself from harm's way, should she let fear rule her, Meleys would know it and the bond between dragon and rider, tool and mistress would be broken. Then, she would die. So she stood her ground even as she thought that she'd swoon, that she was already swooning from the heat.

And then, the jaws snapped closed. Meleys lowered her head. Rhaenys circled her and slapped a saddle onto her – it was a good thing that they had those outside the very stalls as well, else she would have found herself into a closed space with two enraged dragons still inside to take it out.

There was no time to give the men instructions and anyway, there was no way they'd hear her from this high. She saw Seasmoke and Syrax also rising and thought that with the general level of panic in the yard greatly increased, the men should be able to douse the fires now. But there was no time to see.

Vhagar was not hard to spot. They just had to follow the fire blazing a trail in all directions over the city like a red comet. Hadn't her mother found an old book mentioning a red star in the library of Dragonstone some decades ago? Why was she thinking about this at all?

She could feel how Meleys became less frenzied and more responsive but just to be sure, she made a circle over King's Landing, trying to make out which quarters had been put on fire. Too many. The capital resembled nothing different than a chandelier with some candles burning and others unlit.

She breathed the fresh night air in deeply. Down there, at Aegon's Hill, were her little children and their father, left on Vhagar's impulses if they would not manage to stop her. The whole city was on a dragon's mercy of which a dragon had none. She thought about that without dread and without fear. She had long ago learned to push those in the back of her mind when needed, as hard as it was. She would not think of failing, dying, falling, leading Laenor or Rhaenyra to death. _When we get back, I'll have some hot tea and lemon cake as Viserys rubs my feet, she thought._ She would not think of _not_ succeeding.

The closer they came to Vhagar, the quicker her heart beat.

How she wished that her uncle and grandfather had been more insistent that Viserys claimed a new dragon after Balerion's death! Her uncle had pressed him beyond measure on things that, from the distance of time, looked so minor, yet he had let him have his way in this most important thing of all. Four dragons stood an infinitely better chance than three but three was what they had.

She descended upon Vhagar from above, the clouds and smoke successfully having hid her. Vhagar startled and instinctively dove right but Rhaenyra was there and Syrax met Vhagar with her bulk; relieved, Rhaenys realized that the long hours of flying the children had spent together had given Rhaenyra and Laenor some understanding of Vhagar and her reactions, both commanded by Laena and not.

Her relief did not last long; as Laenor and Rhaenyra ried to steer Vhagar back towards Rhaenys' Hill and she kept Meleys close overhead to stop Vhagar from flying off high in the sky, Vhagar made a half-turn and extended a huge claw; Syrax roared in pain but stayed where she was. Blood poured between her yellow scales like a rain of red. Rhaenys steered Meleys downward and she slashed an open path down the entire length of the other dragon's back and at the same time, Seasmoke roared and reached for Vhagar's eye. Both movements deflected her from her chosen opponent but she shook in such fury and pain that the three smaller dragons were easily thrown away; only by the mercy of Seven did Meleys' fire reach Vhagar's path in time to make her recoil… but then, it was Rhaenys who stayed in her saddle only thanks to her saddle chains when her body instinctively lurched at one side to avoid the heat of Vhagar's fiery answer. "We're trying to help you!" Rhaenys shrieked, or thought she had, and then the fire suddenly disappeared and Vhagar became all grasping claws reaching for Seasmoke.

The young dragon eluded them easily, flew aside and then came back in full force, aiming for Vhagar's wing. "No!" Rhaenys screamed because Seasmoke's claws were sharp enough to tear the wing off and this was an injury that would render Vhagar unable to go aloft ever again.

Neither man nor dragon heard her but it mattered not: a jerk of Vhagar saved her wing and Seasmoke's claws drove into her side instead, got lodged there, shook in a way that made Rhaenys think that at least one of them had just been broken; as Syrax and Meleys came at Vhagar at the same time, Seasmoke managed to draw his claw out and spit fire that made Vhagar and Meleys draw their heads back; at this moment, Syrax drove into Vhagar, giving her the first true push into the right direction.

From then on, everything became a blur of flames, claws, and heaving bodies. For the first time in her life, Rhaenys felt in her very core what a dangerous delusion the Targaryens lived in. They thought they could control their dragons just because the dragons would not devour them and would obligingly throw themselves against any enemy they turned them on. But when something more was expected…

She was at the mercy of Meleys as much as she was at Vhagar. And her dragon certainly did not understand that Vhagar was to be taken alive.

The end was like Rhaenys had always imagined Aegon's Conquest had been like. Fire and blood – the dragons'… and their own. Vhagar lay at the ground where she had taken down one of the city gates as she had fallen. Her immense bulk did not move with breathing. Rhaenyra's arm was dislocated by the shoulder by a grasping claw, the blood pouring down so abundant that Rhaenys thought she'd lose it before she realized it was not just her stepdaughter's but Vhagar's blood as well. She turned to look around for Seasmoke and screamed because at this moment, the young dragon was hurtling against the ground with a thump that made everyone stumble and lay there, panting, with his rider partly pressed under one wing as all over the city, people screamed and hurried to douse the fires that still burned in the night like red-petaled flowers.

The throes of the dragon were such that no one could go near and drag Laenor away. He made no move to free himself. Was he dead? Rhaenys ran with her heart in her throat but at the time she reached them, the wounded dragon had removed his wing and was using it to push Laenor slightly, as if wanting to make sure that his rider lived. Both of them were burned and torn beyond recognition; when Rhaenys leaned over her son, she thought he was dead for sure but when Rhaenyra pressed at a wound, new blood spurted out, fresh and glorious. The girl looked up and her smile was the most beautiful thing Rhaenys had seen in a very long time. "He's going to live," she said and despite knowing that Rhaenyra could promise no such thing, Rhaenys believed her. "Bring a litter immediately!" she ordered and Rhaenys was grateful because, for the second time in her life, she was unable to think despite knowing how much depended on her.

But before the two women could go back to the Red Keep, there were some things they needed to do. "You return Meleys to the put," Rhaenyra offered, "and I'll take care of the rest."

"The rest?" Rhaenys repeated dully. "You cannot return Seasmoke anywhere. He'll burn you before you can mount. He'll only accept Laenor."

"I won't ride him," Rhaenyra replied. "Look! He's collapsed but he's still breathing. I'll have men a platform move him before he wakes."

"Thank the gods for this small mercy!" Rhaenys whispered and so, it was a huge platform with a rapidly forged cage that the dragon was transported all through the city, under the horrified looks of those finished with dousing the fires. But Rhaenys did not see that. She was in her son's chamber, watching the maesters treat his burns, race time before the infection could spread. To her relief, his face was almost unscathed, albeit covered in smoke. His body, though… He would be a wound from now on, from shoulders to waist. But his constant companion did not seem to mind. For the first time, Rhaenys felt like giving the boy a look but he could not keep his interest for long. A heartbeat later, her eyes returned to Laenor again, so intent that she did not hear the maester addressing her. "Rhaenys," Viserys finally said, touching her hand very gently. "Rhaenys, you must let them see to your arm."

"My arm?" she asked, surprised, and only when she followed his look did she notice the bone sticking under her skin. She had not felt the break. "Not now."

"Yes, now. You must not delay."

"I'll stay with him," Rhaenyra offered. "If there is something, I will call you. But nothing will go wrong. He's going to live."

Reluctantly, Rhaenys moved to the adjacent chamber and although the freezing fear should leave no place for anything else, she still grunted when they started manipulating the arm. Viserys forced a cloth in her mouth to bite and then everything went black.

When she woke up, the sun had risen high in the sky. She stretched, wondering why she was feeling so battered… and then she remembered. A scream rose in her throat but as she tried to rise in bed and collapsed because she rose on the wrong arm, she heard Viserys' voice from the other side of the canopy and peace came upon her. There was no way he would be so calm if Laenor had… if he had…

"Actually, it sounds quite reasonable," he was saying. "Save for…" He hesitated.

"I know how Laenor is," Rhaenyra said, helping him. "And he knows how I am. We have an understanding. All will be fine. Don't worry."

Rhaenys didn't know about Viserys but her own worry had dissolved completely. She felt renewed, free of any concerns. Yes, Daemon might try to make trouble . So what? Viserys would live long and he would not repeat the mistake of summoning his brother back for many years to come; with every passing moon, Rhaenyra's position in the realm would be strengthened – Rhaenys was already thinking of all the ways she could enhance her stepdaughter's already considerable part last night. This marriage was the solution of all their problems. When the time came, Rhaenyra and Laenor would be accepted as natural extension of Viserys and Rhaenys herself. And that solved the problem for the succession of Driftmark as well. As discontent as Rhaenys might be with Laenor in some things, a marriage of hatred was not what she wished for him.

For the briefest of moments, she wondered what would have happened, had Laenor not survived. Would her marriage have remained as it was? Would she have been able to look at Viserys without thinking of how different it might have been if he had neglected his own reluctance and claimed another dragon after Balerion? She was happy that she would never get to know.

"I think she woke up," Viserys said; a second later he parted the canopy to let the sunlight in and reached for her hand, taking it in his own.

Rhaenys left it there like a tangible bit of peace, finally warm and safe.

* * *

**The End**

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a comment left under an older one. Thanks, Kitty101!


End file.
